


Franz Kafka, Frank Zappa (alternatively titled Norman F*cking Rockwell!)

by batty_lite



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pete Wentz/Mikey Way - Freeform, Platonic Relationships, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, William Beckett/Patrick Stump - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:26:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 183,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22140037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batty_lite/pseuds/batty_lite
Summary: If you don't get it right the first time, try again.The book in three sentences: A beach house, a shitty apartment in Cambridge, and a nice apartment in South End Boston. After synchronous breakups, Pete and Patrick meet though a naive Gabe, but a job offer, a pair of well-meaning-but-suspicious boyfriends, and a pretentious book aren’t making things easy.It’s story about a music journalist fresh out of college and a corporate lawyer falling in and out of love, in which navigating young adulthood is just as complicated as it seems.Goddamn, man-child."The Great Gatsby meets Call Me By Your Name." —carbonbased000
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 173
Kudos: 81





	1. In which there is a house party and Patrick has a hot girl summer.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The first week of August... These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after._ — Natalie Babbitt

_August, Year I_

“You have to come,” Gabe is saying. Pete barely looks up from his phone and haves a noncommittal grunt in Gabe’s direction from where he’s sitting on the floor. There’s an open pizza box and bottles of craft beer littering the carpet of Gabe’s living room, and Gabe continues, “It’s going to be a good party, and there’s someone you have to meet.” 

Pete wrinkles his nose.“Fuck, I don’t want to meet anyone—especially if it’s one of your weird friends.”

Lounging across the couch, Gabe kicks him lightly in the back of the head. “It’s a friend of a friend,” Gabe says, and Pete interrupts him.

“Oh, then I’m definitely not going.” 

“You have to trust me on this one,” Gabe insists, “And don’t tell me it’s too soon, because I’m telling you, you two were over for months. I’m insisting you take a break from girls for a while.” 

Pete considers his beer while Gabe preaches to the back of his head. The break-up had bared its fair share of complexities and had included a number of drunken accusations and multiple rounds of public make-up sex. After Pete’s unsuccessful attempt at ending things peaceably, the relationship had reached its culmination when she had broken every coffee mug in Pete’s kitchen under witness of both Pete and Gabe. In the aftermath, Pete had said, eyes wide, “I think I’m done with girls.” 

“I’m not meeting your friend,” Pete tells Gabe again. He takes a bite of pizza and continues, mumbling, “And I’m not going to your stupid party. Do you want to watch this movie? If not, I’m fucking leaving.” 

“It’s not my party and it’s not my friend,” Gabe says. He throws the television remote with a perfect arch into Pete’s lap. 

“I don’t care, because I’m not going.” Pete crosses his legs, balances his paper plate on his knee, and aims the remote at the television.

♥

Pete goes to Gabe’s stupid party. It’s a shitty house party, in someone’s two-level, and Gabe tells him it starts at nine. Pete shows up at ten to find that everyone is already wasted. 

“Do you know where Gabe is?” Pete asks the first person he sees, a girl he’s met once and never talked to. 

“Upstairs,” she says lightly. She’s sitting on someone’s lap, her hand shoved into the back of his jeans, but her eyes slide down Pete’s body easily. Pete grins and thanks her. 

Pete finds Gabe playing beer pong, very poorly, with a boy with a mop of curly brown hair. Music booms from a speaker in the corner, deafening, and it takes a moment to get Gabe’s attention. Pete yells over the sound of the stereo system and suddenly wishes he was violently drunk.

Gabe smacks Pete between the shoulder blades a little too hard when he sees him. “Dude, I knew you’d show up,” he yells in Pete’s ear. “What do you want? There’s only boxed wine, but I brought alcohol.” 

“I want a vodka soda,” Pete replies, “And I want you to introduce me to your friend so I can leave when I want.” 

Gabe looks confused for a moment. “Ah,” he says finally. He bounces a ping pong ball off the table, throws it across the table, and misses terribly. Pete watches the boy chase the plastic ball into the other room. Gabe ignores him and rearranges his cups on the table. “You gotta give me a few minutes.” 

“Five minutes,” Pete allows. 

Gabe finds him a can of Sprite and a bottle of Svedka when he loses at beer pong, and Pete follows closely behind as Gabe traipses to the basement. The basement is crowded with people around a bar and a television, but Gabe seems to know who he’s looking for. He steps over legs and taps someone’s shoulders leaning up against the bar. He whips around and gives Gabe a discriminatory look. 

“Patrick, this is Pete Wentz,” Gabe explains, and vaguely gestures to Pete.

Patrick is small and attractive and has a very cute ass. Patrick is also very, very drunk. He gives Pete a half-hearted once over and sniffs. 

Pete tries his most charming smile. “Nice to meet you,” he says loudly, and extends his hand. 

Patrick appears less than impressed. He takes Pete’s hand and gives him a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Patrick’s palms are sticky and his hair is damp, stuck to his forehead. The blush rising over his cheekbones makes something in Pete’s stomach flip uncomfortably. He looks like he might have recently gotten, or given, a hand job in the bathroom. 

“Nice to meet you, too,” Patrick says, though he doesn’t sound like he means it. He continues, “Gabe, I went to that show on Friday and it sucked.” 

Gabe laughs. “That’s my friend’s side gig.” 

“Well, they sucked,” Patrick says, and grins. 

Unconvincingly, Gabe replies, “I’ll pass it on.” He motions between Pete and Patrick, and nods. “I’m gonna go play pong— uh, have fun,” he announces, and makes a swift escape. Pete feels thoroughly betrayed. 

Patrick’s company turns to him and plants a wet and possessive kiss to the side of Patrick’s face. His fingers are loose around the rim of a plastic cup, and he gives Pete an exclusionary glance before he whispers something against Patrick’s ear. Patrick laughs and leans into him, and it is immediately obvious what has occurred between them minutes before. Patrick whispers something in return and fists a hand in the man’s shirt. 

Uninterested in watching them suck face, Pete takes a sharp step backward. “I’m going to go,” Pete tells them both. “It was nice to meet you.”

Patrick doesn’t look at him, but says sideways, “Yeah, it was nice to meet you.” 

Tipsy enough to be confident, Pete leaves the couple and sits down next to the girl he’d had a brief exchange with earlier. “Hey,” he says, loud enough to be heard over the music. 

She gives Pete a noticeable once-over and says, “I have a boyfriend.” Her voice is apologetic but the look Pete catches is discouraging.

“Right,” Pete says, nodding, and downs the rest of his drink. He tries not to watch her walk away. He hates Gabe. 

Pete finds Gabe a second time in a losing game of flip cup. He throws an arm around Gabe’s shoulder, and Gabe eyes him in speculation. “Gabe, I love you and you’re the fucking worst. I’m leaving.” 

Gabe sticks his drink under Pete’s nose. “Pork soda.” 

“Fuck, that smells horrible. You’re the worst friend ever. I hope you know that.” 

Gabe protests immediately. “Oh, come on— I’m your best friend, and I’m getting you wasted. Tell me what happened.” Gabe leaves the flip cup game to console him, and midnight finds Pete in the bathroom with some girl’s tongue on the inside of his lower lip. Gabe feeds him orange slices and tequila, and Pete leaves his phone in the carpool on the way home. 


	2. In which Gabe has a darty.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"But the sound of our bouncing back is a Grand Canyon full of choir claps.”_ — Andrea Gibson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1 was a tease-- this is where the story begins.

Here are some things you must know: 

1\. Patrick, the owner of one brown tabby cat named Sonkhonkett, has likely made a poor initial impression. Patrick has spent his childhood and teen years in an awkward shuffle between the US and Italy and thought he’d figured it out with a girlfriend and degree from an east coast university, but after a clean-but-still-miserable, break-up with his long-term girlfriend in April, Patrick moves himself and the cat to an apartment in North Cambridge, and so begins the most liberating and the most miserable summer of his life. Patrick spends the months between May and September recreating the college experience he never had— drowning his feelings of failing adulthood in cheap booze and experimenting with smoking and fucking and love-making, and it is exactly what he needs. He learns his real vice is cigarettes, that he has a sexual preference for men, and that paying his own bills sucks.

2\. The behavior of South End corporate lawyer Pete can only be attributed to an overly loving mother and having perhaps too much money than any boy reaching thirty has any idea what to do with. Pete spends his salary on repaying his parents for law school and on alcohol and weed on the weekends, and spends his time between Gabe and working on his latest novel. He is the unfortunate victim of a minute case of Peter Pan syndrome.

3\. They both feel a little lost. 

_October, Year I_

Gabe’s annual birthday celebration comes as a necessary relief in the beginning of October. The beginning of the fall had felt like a bad trip, a shuffle of complicated cases in Pete’s downtown law firm paired nicely with the influx of college students at the beginning of September. Pete drowns the last long days of summer with long days in the office and hours of phone calls with clients, and realizes with no great sadness that summer is officially over. Gabe’s birthday is the funeral of warmer weather, and Gabe hosts it in his own backyard, and the party is as much a celebration of his late twenties as it is an excuse to get drunk with friends— a _darty,_ Gabe calls it on the phone the week before. Pete laughs and promises to bring a bottle of wine for Gabe and Erin. He purchases a gift card to Pavement Coffeehouse on his morning commute and thinks absentmindedly that Gabe is worth so much more than coffee and a bottle of expensive wine, and deserves the world instead. 

Gabe’s split-level house in Jamaica Plain is filled with friends and a number of rowdy dogs when Pete arrives the Saturday of Columbus Day weekend. The October afternoon is sunny and unseasonably warm, and Gabe’s deck is decorated with tinsel and a pink tablecloth, clearly Erin’s doing. Gabe pulls him into a one-armed hug, beer in hand and sunglasses balanced on the end of his nose, when Pete steps through the front door, and chides cheerfully, “Late again, asshole.” 

“Hey,” Pete teases, and presses his face into Gabe’s patterned button-up. “You should be glad I showed up to your party— seems fucking lame, dude.” 

Gabe laughs at this, and Pete grins in return. It is an exchange of brotherly love and Pete feels lighter in spirit than he has in months.

“Come on,” Gabe says, his arm still slung haphazardly around Pete’s shoulder. “You want a beer? Rising Tide? A Smutty? Erin made sangria.” 

Pete requests an APA and chats with Gabe until Erin insists he greet arriving guests, and Pete wanders out to the backyard in search of a new conversation partner. On the patio, Pete sits in a colored Adirondack chair and throws his legs over the arm of the chair to face the person to his right.

It’s a bit too coincidental, the way they meet again, at the bottom of two beers and high on a well-timed zest for life. It seems serendipitous then, but unbeknownst to Pete, Gabe gives him the keys to the universe every once in a while, and the game is whether Pete pockets the keys. More often than not, Gabe plays God, an alcoholic Lady Wisdom by his side, and Pete is always a coin flip away from a _volte-face_ in the trajectory of life. 

“Hey,” Pete says suddenly, “I think we’ve met before.” 

As luck would have it, the Prime Mover also has a proclivity for awarding second chances to those who deserve it. 

Patrick’s face creases with confusion, mouth open slightly. “I don’t think so— I’m sorry, what’s your name?” 

“No,” Pete insists. “We have, at a house party. Over the summer, August maybe. Patrick, right? I’m Pete.” Patrick blinks and otherwise shows zero recognition. “Can I tell you what happened?” Patrick cracks a small smile and leans forward incrementally as if to protest, and in the sunlight, Patrick has a soft mouth and velveteen eyelashes. Pete rests his elbows on his knees and recites, “You were watching a Twins game in the basement of a frat house on the Hill, and Gabe introduced us. You were with a taller blond guy, and obviously wasted, and you told Gabe that his friend’s band was terrible. You were clearly busy. Do you remember any of this?”

Patrick laughs, now clearly embarrassed. His eyes glitter. Patrick says, “Maybe.”

Pete replies, “Yeah.” His voice carries a smugness, and Patrick melts into a dizzying grin. “Can I ask?” Pete continues. “Are you always that uncongenial to people you’ve just met or was that just a one-time thing?” 

He regrets asking as soon as the words leave his lips and Pete silently prays Patrick can take a cruel joke. He touches Patrick’s forearm with calloused fingertips, and Patrick hiccups through a laugh. Patrick’s skin is soft under Pete’s fingers, and Pete feels an immediate sense of relief, flooding and warm. 

“Yeah, we’ve met,” Patrick says, “Should I apologize for that? I feel like I should apologize for that. I’m not usually that—” 

Pete laughs brightly. “No, that party sucked.” 

“Okay.” Patrick leans back in his chair, looking like he wants to dispute Pete’s claim, and says instead, “I’m, uh— I’m going to go get another drink. There’s sangria and it’s good. Do you want one?”

Pete tells him he only wants a little, but Patrick returns with two full glasses and Pete happily accepts the glass with a playful smirk. He learns Patrick is a music journalist, for a Boston University start-up magazine, which Pete finds incredibly interesting and a fact Patrick obviously wants to sweep under the rug. 

“It’s just a lot of writing, mostly,” Patrick tells him drily. 

Pete visibly brightens. Pete wants to talk about music and Patrick is happy to accommodate. He tells him about all the terrible young bands he’s seen lately, and the ones with potential, and Patrick’s heart jumps each time Pete makes a bad joke and gives Patrick a shit-eating grin.

The outside temperature has dropped significantly, and most of Gabe’s guests have left over an hour ago. Patrick sits huddled into his sweater, knees drawn up to his chest. Their empty wine glasses sit abandoned on the glass table between them.

The two-drink rule is undeniably, irrefutably, indisputably real. At the bottom of two glasses of sangria, Pete is unsure if the contentedness settling between his ribs is an aftereffect of the October sun, the alcohol, or Patrick’s charm, but as the afternoon fades into the evening, he feels looser, happy even, and Patrick watches him with genuine interest when Pete tells him about the law firm and his crazed clients.

“A secret for a secret?” Pete suggests. The sun sinks just below the tree line of Gabe’s backyard, and Patrick leans closer to him over the arm of his chair. “I was going write a book.”He raises an eyebrow and his face stretches slowly into a Cheshire cat-like grin. Patrick grins back. “Isn’t that stupid?” 

Patrick’s grin intensifies. “You think that’s stupid? I wanted to be a fucking musician—like a real one.” 

“That’s not stupid,” Pete assures him, and asks too quickly, “Answer me this— who was that guy at the party over the summer?”

Pete is a little proud of himself for being so self-assured. Patrick laughs, and a little drunk on sangria and open conversation, Pete thinks to himself that Patrick’s stunted laugh is a sound he could get used to.

Patrick hums and flicks the hair from his forehead. He rolls his eyes, and admits, “He’s a guy from a band I know.” 

Pete glows. “You’re a _groupie,_ ” he says shrilly, and revels in the way one corner of Patrick’s mouth quirks upwards. 

“Barely, he’s a Berklee student.” 

“He was hot on you, you know.” 

“Yeah, I think he was a little hot on everyone,” Patrick admits, and hopes the flush that appears over his cheekbones isn’t too revealing.

Gabe materializes on the patio, and with his back to Gabe, Patrick jumps slightly. Pete clears his throat and tears his unfocused gaze away from Patrick’s open mouth in time to hear Gabe say, “Hey. We’re playing Never Have I Ever, and Patrick, I am insisting that you play.” 

The look that crosses Patrick’s face is furious and fleeting, disappearing fast enough that Pete wonders if it was ever there at all. Pete’s interest is immediately piqued. “I’ll play,” he chirps, as a means of encouragement. 

Inside, Gabe delivers the rules. “Okay— ten fingers and first person to none wins. No take-backs and nothing boring. Erin, go first.” 

Pete poses himself next to Patrick, sets a new drink in front of him, a calimocho, and touches the small of his back. “You don’t want to play?” he teases, whispering, and receives an eye roll in response.

The game proceeds as Never Have I Ever usually does, a cycle of increasingly strange sexual encounters and brushes with the law enforcement, and Pete ends up with four fingers left in the middle of the game. Patrick is silent during the majority of the game, and perhaps against his better judgment, Pete touches Patrick’s knee under the table and gives him a reassuring look each time Patrick puts a finger to his palm and shakes his head. 

“Never have I ever, uh, fucked someone in a bathroom,” someone says.

“Public or, like, in your house?” someone else asks in response. 

“Oh, public.” 

A number of Gabe’s guests put fingers down. Patrick sighs, takes a drink, and presses his index finger to his palm. Next to him, Pete sniffs and wipes at his nose. 

It’s Pete’s turn to make a confession. He takes a deep inhale and prays for a second time that Patrick can take a mild public mockery. “Never have I ever been a groupie.” 

Patrick cracks. “Fuck you!” he scolds fondly, and shoves at Pete’s shoulder.

Pete beams, blushes, and watches Patrick’s hands against his bicep, flirtatious and deliciously masculine. He takes a chance at pushing him back lightly, if only to confirm that Patrick’s eyes narrow and darken. Patrick retreats to his chair and reluctantly puts a finger down.

The game ends shortly after, and Erin kicks them both out of the front door shortly after half-past midnight. She grills them both about making it home safely, and doesn’t look confident as Patrick stumbles down the steps of Gabe’s front porch, arms wrapped around Pete’s elbow, but Gabe insists they can make it home and Pete is grateful. 

“Patrick, say goodbye,” Pete jests, and Patrick snickers into his shoulder. Gabe watches them both, his interest piqued, and gives Pete a raised eyebrow. Pete returns a challenging look.

At the bottom of Gabe’s steps, a tipsy Patrick collides with Pete’s chest. Pete pulls him in and Patrick laughs, his hair in Pete’s mouth and Pete’s hands in his armpits. Pete feels wonderfully childish, naive and inexperienced, a high schooler after prom night, and he gently lifts him from his chest and finds Patrick’s hips in his hands. 

“You were embarrassed,” Pete tells him with a slight smile. Patrick gives him a questioning look, and Pete explains, “In Never Have I Ever.” 

Patrick wrinkles his nose. “It’s too public.” 

Pete quietly thinks that the game wasn’t public enough. Patrick’s admissions of sexual prowess increase in potential to become prime masturbation fuel with each passing minute, even if Pete won’t admit it until later, when he’s alone and in the dark. He’s silent a moment too long, and Patrick wraps delicate fingers around his elbow and pulls them face-to-face. Pete’s eyes meet his and on instinct, Pete blinks and swallows hard.

Up close, Pete’s well-off Boston corporate financial lawyer front is transparent. Mama’s boy turned college party attendee, Pete navigates adulthood in a manner that can only be described as abstract. Somewhere in the time warp between law school graduation and now, Pete trips on the realization that a traditional, and well-paying, career is not the missing link in his definition of personal success as an adult. He’s desperate to keep up with appearances though, and does a passing job of it. With Pete’s nose inches from his own and both tipsy on beer and mixed drinks, Patrick considers that Pete is much more than he appears on the surface— Pete is real, and sweet, and right now, nervous. Inebriated enough to be honest with confidence, Patrick makes the decision to say what he feels for what might be the first time in his life.

“I think you’re really sweet,” Patrick blurts out, "And I have to tell you a secret, a different secret.”

Foreheads pressed together, Pete’s vision blurs and Patrick’s face goes fuzzy, like television static. Patrick huffs out a laugh, and Pete can feel it across his lower lip, ticklish like pressing his fingers to the television screen. His fingers tighten on Patrick’s hip. “You didn’t give away all your secrets in Never Have I Ever?” 

Patrick takes a deep inhale and shakes his head. Pete raises his eyebrows, jokingly, and Patrick’s stomach flips. The drunken anticipation is palpable between then, and Pete’s heart flutters each time Patrick blinks blue bedroom eyes.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but my last girlfriend dumped me because I never commit to anything,” Patrick whispers finally, and Pete laughs softly. If not for the sangria, Patrick would regret saying it, but under Gabe’s front porch light, Pete’s eyes are glittering and he looks younger than he is and Patrick suddenly wants Pete’s mouth against his. Patrick takes another deep breath and asks, “Can I kiss you?” 

Pete doesn’t say yes or no, but slides his fingers through the soft hair at the base of Patrick’s skull and pulls Patrick’s face to his. Patrick’s eyes flutter closed and Patrick finds Pete’s mouth with his own. It’s gentle and sweet and sobering; Pete’s mouth tastes of sangria, like red wine and oranges, and his nose bumps Patrick’s cheekbones. Patrick makes a small noise when Pete pulls away and thinks to himself that it hadn’t lasted long enough— his head is clearer, his vision straighter, and Pete glows in the yellow of the porch light.

“Kiss me again,” Patrick says softly, and Pete does, on the sidewalk in front of his best friend’s house. Patrick’s lips are soft under his and Pete thinks to himself that it’s been a while since anyone wanted to kiss him, didn’t act like it was a chore. It’s nice, Pete thinks. Patrick is cute and fun, and in the moment, Pete doesn’t care that Patrick has just admitted that commitment is out of the question, or that it made his heart sink in his chest just a little. Patrick’s eyes are warm, his mouth stained from sangria, and instead of kissing him again, Pete takes each of his hands and asks, laughing, “Please tell me where you had sex in a bathroom.” 

Patrick scoffs and rolls his eyes. Pete squeezes his hands.

“It was an airport,” Patrick admits, and Pete glows. 

“Logan?”

“ _Fuck,_ ” Patrick breathes, and then says, “No, it was JFK.” 

_And I'm wasted— don’t leave, I just need a wake-up call._ — The Greatest

_November, Year I_

Thanksgiving comes and goes without incident. Pete takes respite from the turmoil of the firm (the fall season is always the busiest, and this year is no exception) in a trip to see his family. Pete breathes in the sweet air of well-deserved freedom as he steps on the Monday flight from Logan to O’Hare and settles with a coffee and his worn notebook in his seat. The flight attendant is cute and gives him extra pretzels, and Pete spends the flight between daydreaming and writing. 

At home, he fields questions about girlfriends and his job with an expert ability and enjoys the warmth of family and his mother’s cooking. He goes out for coffee with his sister and lets his niece paint his fingernails, which Pete takes a picture of and then scrubs off in the bathroom shortly after.

They Skype, the day after Thanksgiving and in the morning. There’s an hour between them, and Pete calls him at ten, but Patrick looks like he’s just woken up, hair mussed and coffee mug in hand. 

“How was your Thanksgiving?” Patrick asks, voice rough. “I didn’t leave my apartment. It was incredible.”

Pete laughs at this. Patrick raises his eyebrows. 

“We should do dinner Sunday. I fly back Sunday morning,” Pete tells him. 

Since the beginning of October, dinner has become common practice. It’s somewhat of a secret. Pete invites him to the South End apartment and they get take out and drink beer, or else they smoke. Patrick is touchy after a couple of drinks (the two drink rule rings true again), and Pete is hesitant to admit that he doesn’t mind Patrick’s body pressed to his on Pete’s leather couch, or Patrick’s fingers on the outside of his thigh when Pete says something particularly amusing. Despite their initial introduction and the brief time they’ve known each other, Patrick is prettier each time Pete sees him. They don’t talk about the kiss. It doesn’t happen again.

“I just have to turn in early because I have to be with a client at eight on Monday,” Pete continues. It’s a big case, a local corporate office with an incorrect tax exemption claim, and Pete spares him the excruciating details and instead says, “I’m fucked if I’m late.” 

On the day of the flight back, it snows. It snows all night and through the morning, wet and heavy, coating the city and surrounding suburbs in a damp white blanket that permeates everything— the house, the car, and Pete’s warmest coat. He exchanges goodbyes and I love you’s with his mother when the car arrives, and Pete trudges through the slush to the slick street. The pavement is soaked, like everything else, and Pete watches the car slide around the corner of his mother’s short street and conjures an image of sliding in the traffic on the highway connector, his hands gripping the seat with white knuckles. He has never been less ecstatic to get in a car.

His mother wraps him in a hug and holds him close. “I’m going to miss you,” she says with her eyes closed. 

“I’ll miss you, too,” Pete replies.

She asks then, “You aren’t lonely, are you?” 

“I’m not lonely,” Pete replies again. His mother’s small smile is pitying but trusting, and Pete grins in return. “I’m fine, I promise.” 

The airport is a mass of travelers in the weekend after Thanksgiving and it takes an extraneous amount of time to get through security. When he makes it through, he follows the swarm of people to the information display and

—  Pete stares at the screen and feels his stomach sink. It was a risk, traveling the weekend after Thanksgiving and with the incoming snow, but the word _delayed_ reads red and ill-fated next to his flight. He thinks about his dinner with Patrick and his court date the next morning and frowns, sighs, and says quietly to himself, “Fuck.” _Delayed_ glows menacingly back at him. 

With hours to kill and nothing better to do, Pete takes up residence in the airport Starbucks. Standing in line, he considers with disappointment canceling his dinner plans and considers with looming disdain rescheduling tomorrow’s court date. He could cancel dinner with a text, but it seems tasteless; their developing friendship is worth more than a text message, a fleeting afterthought of a communication. The court date is a more pressing issue— rescheduling makes a poor impression and is bound to get him in trouble. Pete fidgets with the zipper on his coat and debates the options. The line is long, and Pete slips his phone from his pocket to cancel dinner with a growing sense of remorse. 

“Hey,” Patrick answers, radiant and sunny, and Pete stares out the window of the Starbucks at the grey clouds above the tarmac and feels the sky become impossibly greyer. A week with extended family is enough for a year, and Pete craves the company of his peers, the bitter cold of Boston against the harsh winds of Chicago. 

“Hey,” Pete replies, defeat evident. “I've got to cancel on you for dinner tonight. My flight was delayed because of the snow.” 

Patrick takes the setback without second thought. “How long?” 

“I don’t know. A few hours?” 

“What about your appointment tomorrow?” 

Pete spills his anxieties about canceling then and there. He thinks he must sound harebrained, in line for coffee and publicly announcing his hardships, but Patrick’s voice offers a wave of relief that Pete can’t help but lean into. Patrick soaks it in quietly.

“I have to go,” Pete tells him when he reaches the counter. “I can call you back."

Patrick’s response is confident and soothing in its simplicity. “Don’t, but cancel the court date. Be safe for me and let me know when you get home.” 

The barista asks him for his coffee order and Pete doesn’t hear it. He fumbles with his phone and swallows around his tongue— _be safe for me,_ Patrick had said. It had been unthinking and likely accidental, but it catches Pete between the ribs. Face to face with an underpaid Starbucks barista, Pete experiences the uncomfortable realization that maybe phone calls and Skype sessions and weekly apartment dinners is culminating in something bigger than an effortless friendship. Pete has yet to think of this; Pete refuses to think of it.

“Sorry,” Pete tells the barista. She smiles back at him, and it should be reassuring, but Pete has momentarily forgotten to breathe. He shakes his head and reminds himself to inhale and orders the coffee.

Pete makes the conscious decision to forget what Patrick’s said, and unconsciously, Pete revels in Patrick’s unknowing confession of affection for the rest of the afternoon. It gets him through an awkward conversation with his client about rescheduling the court date and it occupies him for at least long enough to finish the coffee. Pete’s boss yells at him over the phone for rescheduling and Pete spins his empty coffee cup in his hands and profusely distributes half-hearted apologies to everyone involved. Some days, Pete hates being a corporate lawyer, and over days and weeks, Pete develops an undeniable fondness for one Patrick Stump. 

The plane lands at Logan International at half past 4 AM. It’s too late to call, but Pete texts both his mother and Patrick, separately, that he’s made it home despite the snow. He feels tired to the bone and can do nothing but call a cab home and sleep through the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Sonkhonkett_ is the name of a fictional Massachusetts town on the North Shore. It is also a performance art piece at Dorchester Art Project, and the most disconcerting puppet show I have ever seen. 
> 
> I talk a lot @battylite on Tumblr. See you next week!


	3. In which there is a New Year's, and other new beginnings.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"It is December, and nobody asked if I was ready."_ — Sarah Kay

_December, Year I_

At four-fifty on Friday evening and a week before Christmas, Pete is on the phone with his most irritating client. The phone call is nearing an hour in duration, and Pete has spoken fifty words in total, if he’s being generous. The man on the phone is ever-present and ruthless, and Pete stares at the clock opposite his desk and realizes with budding annoyance that he will be late for dinner at his own apartment.

“I need to know if we acquire their assets and investors,” his client is saying. 

With his office phone pinned between his shoulder and his ear, Pete paws through the smallest pocket of his backpack for his cell phone and says, “Right.” 

“Especially because I didn’t know they hadn’t paid off the loans until our paralegal read the contract.”

“You bought the company without doc’ing the contract,” Pete says. It’s not a question, but a confirmation that his client is as dumb as he sounds over the phone. 

His client makes a poor excuse for lacking the required paperwork and Pete sighs, disgruntled, and glances at the clock for what feels like the hundredth time. _Dear Patrick, sorry I am late for dinner for the fifth time_ , he thinks snidely, and then writes instead, 

> _Going to be late again. Let yourself in key taped to the inside of the mail slot_

“Right,” Pete says again. 

His client ends the call twenty-five minutes later with a promise to write an email with the same information. Pete hopes this eliminates any need for further conversations via phone. The commute home takes longer than usual and the heater on the subway car is broken. It’s only appropriate. 

Patrick sits with his laptop open at Pete’s resin countertops when he gets home. He looks at Pete and pulls off his headphones one by one, and Pete gives him a tight smile as he closes the door behind him, ignoring the itch to wrap himself around Patrick’s chest and squeeze. Instead, he shoves his freezing fingers down the back of Patrick’s collar and relishes in Patrick’s scowl. 

“No heat on the Green line,” Pete says, grinning, and watches Patrick writhe away from his hands. 

Patrick snaps in return, “A hello would suffice,” but it’s warm, and Pete stares smugly at him from the opposite side of the counter. “I’ve been here for an hour, what’s the excuse?”

“Client didn’t realize that when you buy a start-up, you also buy all of their debt,” Pete tells him drily. “I’m too fucking tired to cook. Can we just do takeout? I’ll buy it.” 

“Can I eat it on your stupid expensive couch?” 

“Yes,” Pete answers. They order takeout, and Pete pours a can of Canada Dry into two glasses of white wine to watch Agents Mulder and Scully reveal the culprit of another grisly crime with vague interest. 

Patrick throws his ankles over Pete’s knees and asks him, “Do you think they’re fucking?” 

“They get together, like, halfway through the show.” 

“Oh,” Patrick replies. “That kind of ruins it.” 

Pete laughs around a mouthful of pad Thai and Patrick blinks back at him, clearly self-satisfied with Pete’s amusement, and says, “I have no plans this weekend, when can I read your book?” 

“I already told you,” Pete replies easily. “It’s not finished. You can read it when it’s done.”

“Why can’t I read what you have? Just tell me what it’s about, then.”

Pete rolls his eyes and sighs. “Two people fall in love over a weekend in a hotel in New York City but they don’t exchange numbers, and then they have to find each other again even though they live far away from each other. Is that good enough for you?” 

Patrick only shrugs. 

It’s late by the time they finish eating and flirting around each other. Cars parked for day-hours have left the street vacant and cold, and Pete watches the barren sidewalk from the window and pulls Patrick into a hug from behind just inside the door. 

“Patrick,” Pete murmurs, tattooed arms wrapped firmly around Patrick’s ribs. His nose brushes Patrick’s hairline, and Patrick inhales sharply against his arms. “Do you think I’m spooky?” 

Pete is enigmatic, simultaneously terrifying and inviting. All warm skin and even warmer hands, his persona of strange masculine confidence is infectious, and Patrick’s head spins in his presence. Pete is untouchable, but also sweet, and charming, and in the right lighting, Patrick would insist that the magnetism is mutual. Pete gives him soft glances and sincere compliments that needle at the depths of his stomach, and Patrick returns the bright smiles with equal interest. 

Dinners on Friday nights have slid effortlessly into coffee on Sunday mornings, and Patrick awaits each week’s invitation with feverish anticipation. They’re closer now, a couple of months dug deeper in friendship, and Patrick pointedly avoids thinking of their companionship as anything more—though enraptured outside of his own consciousness, Patrick bottles up the beginnings of his affections and indulges in them privately, curled up on the couch with Pete’s face on his Skype window, or touching his ribs under bedsheets and waiting for his own hands to turn darker, stronger, his other hand fisted loosely around his erection. It’s not intentional, he swears it. Denial increases in difficulty with Pete’s face pressed to the back of his neck.

Patrick shoves Pete’s face away from his shoulder and laughs brightly.

“Let’s do Farmer’s Horse for Sunday morning,” Pete tells him in the doorway, “On Mass Ave. You’ll like it.” 

Patrick stands on his doorstep, backpack slung over one shoulder. He’s still wearing a button-up and dress pants from a day at the office, though the collar of the shirt is undone and his hair is stuck in his eyebrows instead of pushed to the side. He touches the back of his neck, and Pete smiles. 

“Yeah, okay,” Patrick replies. “See you Sunday.”

Patrick refreshes his inbox once more before bed. At the top of Patrick’s thousands of unread messages, the subject line reads, _be nice to me._ Attached are ninety-six pages of words, beginning in clarity and carefully sliding into disjointed musings. 

It’s 2 AM. Patrick stays up past four.

♥

On Sunday, seated in the far corner of the tiny coffee shop, Pete watches the curve of Patrick’s lower lip as he picks the avocado off his breakfast sandwich to eat later. He feels strangely nervous. Patrick hasn’t mentioned the book. Pete won’t ask.

“They have a lot of potential, I think, like, they’ve got a good sound and everything but they need direction. They had four or five songs that are at least demo quality, but it’s too disjointed for an album,” Patrick is saying. 

“Where was this?” Pete tries to pay attention, but Patrick is eating the slices of avocado like French fries and Pete has to watch; it's mesmerizing. He hopes it isn’t obvious.

Patrick looks at him through soft eyelashes. “It wasn’t— someone sent me a sample.” 

“Oh.” 

Patrick seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to Pete and says a lot by saying little. Otherwise, he talks incessantly. He holds his coffee mug to his chin and says over latte foam, “I finished your book.”

Pete succeeds in only spilling a minute amount of iced coffee on the table. He sets the cup sagely on the table and pulls a face. “I’m probably only a third of the way finished with it.”

“It’s about fate,” Patrick suggests with a small smile.

Pete stares at him. “Yeah.” 

Patrick’s small smile grows, playing across the lower half of his face, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Do you believe in all that stuff? Soulmates and the red string and Fortuna?” 

_I get ready, I get all dressed up,_

_To go nowhere in particular,_

_Back to work or the coffee shop. —_ Love

Pete glances between his iced coffee and Patrick’s honey-colored hair and the sun spot on Patrick’s cheek and swallows. He says in defense, “I don’t know. You can convince yourself anything is true or not true if you try hard enough.”

♥

It’s Gabe’s doing. It’s Gabe’s idea to go bar-hopping with a group of friends, starting with a club downtown that’s far too cool for Patrick. The club is loud and suave and colorful and Patrick feels thoroughly unbefitting. The club is loud and suave and colorful and Pete fits in like he was born from it. Pete flirts with girls and guys and Gabe, and Patrick decides to do exactly as he’d planned while leaving the house and drink away the year, much like he’d drank away the previous summer.

Minutes from midnight, Patrick calls himself adequately and undeniably drunk— Patrick and everyone else at the party. Patrick is drunk, and a victim to his usual unconscious thoughts and Pete is climbing over Gabe and his girlfriend. Gabe protests loudly and Patrick cannot tear his eyes away from Pete’s ass in the tight jeans he always wears to parties. 

If only by chance, Pete glances over his shoulder and catches Patrick’s eye. Gabe shoves Pete off his legs, and Patrick doesn’t have the time to say _Absolut, 80 proof,_ before Pete is plastered over his back, sharp hips pressing into Patrick’s lower back. 

“You didn’t bring a date,” Pete whispers, his mouth over the curve of Patrick’s ear. “So whose mouth are you putting your tongue in at midnight?” 

“Gross,” Patrick replies. He plays it off with practiced nonchalance and throws Pete a dirty look. Pete stares at him, unbothered. Pete’s eyes are a little immodest, a little tipsy, and his mouth is too close to Patrick’s. Patrick feels warm under his collar. 

There is a minute in which two scenarios play through Patrick’s mind. In one, he shoves Pete off his back and storms away to sulk. Pete almost certainly will laugh. Patrick watches everyone else get their kiss at midnight, and then he goes to the bar, orders extra alcohol, and avoids Pete for the rest of the night. In the second act, Patrick grabs Pete by the hair on the back of his neck and presses their mouths together and after that, Patrick doesn’t know.

Pete hangs on the back of his neck and Pete’s mouth is inches from his face. In one ear, the club counts down from ten to midnight. In the other, Pete whispers the seconds into the soft skin below Patrick’s hairline, and Patrick’s mouth is on fire and suddenly he’s thinking of Pete’s ass in his tight jeans, or maybe out of his jeans, and then the clock turns over. 

“Happy New Year’s,” Pete murmurs, and grabs Patrick by the chin. 

Patrick kisses him. Maybe fireworks go off, or maybe Patrick drops the cocktail glass in his hand to the floor and it shatters. There are colors and lights overhead and club music pounding against Patrick’s eardrums, and Pete freezes, Patrick’s tongue pressed to his teeth. Patrick squeezes Pete’s side and squeezes his eyes closed and silently begs Pete to do something, and then Pete makes a strangled noise against his mouth, and that is all the encouragement Patrick needs. 

Pete’s tongue is in his mouth and Pete’s nose is pressed into his cheekbone, and Patrick is so drunk. It’s sloppy and Pete tastes of alcohol and Patrick fails to realize that this is what kissing is supposed to feel like, that this is what he’d been missing with everyone else he’d kissed in his life, and instead thinks he should be adding more alcohol to all his problems. Add alcohol and light the match. 

It’s still alcohol-induced, but vastly different from the kiss on Gabe’s sidewalk. Patrick wants it more, Pete’s collarbones sharp against his shoulder, and this time Pete kisses him like maybe he’s worth something, fiery and craze-inducing, even through multiple shots of vodka and coffee liqueur. Patrick swallows against his tongue and tightens his hands on Pete’s sides and knows with absolute clarity that it hadn’t lasted long enough. 

It’s a New Year’s kiss, a singular press of Pete’s mouth to his. It lasts no more than five seconds, but Pete holds Patrick’s chin with gentle fingers and looks at him like he doesn’t have eyes for anything else in the room. Patrick glances between Pete’s dark eyes and Pete’s mouth and laughs, or else his heart pounds hard enough to break ribs, and then Pete swallows and Patrick prepares to fuck his whole life over for this.

Patrick leans into Pete’s ear. “I think I’m feeling a little sick,” Patrick whispers, voice thick. "Can you come with me to the bathroom?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Pete says. 

“Thanks,” Patrick replies. Pete tenses in his hands like he’s nervous, so Patrick drags his teeth over Pete’s earlobe and hopes Pete gets the memo. 

The club bathroom is cramped and cold, and Patrick pushes open a stall door and attempts to drag Pete in by the elbow. Pete stumbles backwards and gives him a concerned look.

“Are you okay?” Pete asks. “I’m just gonna— I’ll just stay here and you tell me if you need anything."

Patrick shakes his head and hauls Pete closer to him by the fabric of his shirt. “No,” he says, and presses kisses to the corner of Pete’s mouth in rapid succession. Pete lurches towards him, drunkenly experiences a delay in understanding, and Patrick can feel under his skin the moment Pete shifts from being completely and utterly confused to thinking, _yes._

“Oh, fuck, Patrick,” Pete slurs, and pushes Patrick backward into the stall. He fumbles with the metal door and the lock clicks closed behind him. 

“Yes. Yeah,” Patrick says between the wet press of Pete’s mouth to his. He’s laughing, Pete’s bottom lip slides over Patrick’s tongue, and Patrick feels like he’s floating, pressed up against the metal panel of the bathroom stall. Pete slides his fingers up the back of Patrick’s shirt, and feeling brave, Patrick grinds into the upper half of Pete’s thigh. Pete makes the same surprised noise as before. 

Pete kisses him until his teeth hurt, his knee snugged between Patrick’s thighs. It tastes the same as before, of coffee liqueur and spiked cider, and Patrick wraps his arms around Pete’s shoulders and pulls him closer. Pete leans against him, thumbs hooked in the waistband of Patrick’s jeans, and the weight is sobering. The kiss is sweeter this time, less biting and less desperate, and Patrick wants nothing more than to drag Pete back to his apartment by the wrist and do everything over again, with less clothes and more touching, 

“Happy New Year’s, I guess,” Patrick says instead. 

Pete’s hair is tousled from sweat and Patrick’s hands. He’s still breathing hard when he says, “Take another shot with me.”

Patrick blinks. “Sure.” 

With Patrick’s hands on the back of his neck, Pete stares back at him with kiss-bitten lips and wide eyes, and Patrick is hit with the stifling anxiety that someone will see them together, or ask where they’ve been. Pete notices. 

“They’re all drunk,” Pete tells him, breathless. “No one will notice. Tell them I was sick”. 

“Okay,” Patrick replies. Pete watches him fondly and Patrick kisses him one last time before they leave the bathroom, sweet and syrupy and determined not to let his emotions get the best of him. Back on the club floor, Patrick drowns his anxieties and his affections in alcohol. Pete’s fingers play with the back pockets of Patrick’s jeans for the rest of the night and Patrick forgets to care what strangers think. 

Pete drags him out of the club past 1 AM and laughing on the street, his fingers wrapped tightly around Patrick’s elbow, Patrick buys a lighter and the first pack of cigarettes he has in months. He lights half the pack between one club and the next and offers each one blissfully to Pete, who does his best to refuse. 

“Those are bad for you,” Pete tells him as he takes a cigarette and balances it, unlit, between his teeth. 

“What? And a half-liter of vodka isn’t? 

“Touché.” 

Even by 3 AM, the streets are far from vacant— fireworks in the distance, drunk college students on their way back to square dormitories, and people huddled in fast food restaurants, desperately trying to prevent a hangover, but Patrick sees none of them. Instead, he sees Pete, concurrently bright and dark, understanding but who ceases to be understood. Patrick knows, he watches him closely.

Pete holds him up with one arm slung around Patrick’s waist and looks at Patrick out of the corner of his eye, unlit cigarette still between his lips.

Patrick takes the cigarette with gentle fingers, and Pete swipes his mouth over the side of Patrick’s neck and purrs, “Gorgeous— come home with me.” 

In all the scenarios Patrick has imagined as their first time while he fucks his own hand, twisted in his bedsheets or in the shower, shoulders pressed into the wet tiles, Pete, drunk and laughing, in his black tiled kitchen, is not one of them. There is no complaining, and Patrick doesn’t see himself feeling bad about it later, either.

“This is— this is not just ‘cause ‘m drunk,” Pete tells him in the kitchen, his mouth on Patrick’s neck. “I— I’ve been eye-fucking you for a month.” 

“You’d fuck me,” Patrick wonders aloud. He feels high from the nicotine and Pete’s teeth in his shoulder. “Okay.” 

Pete strips himself of his shirt with two arms over his head, pushes Patrick’s hips to the edge of the counter, and, knees weak, Patrick climbs the counter with Pete’s hands on the backs of his thighs. It’s dizzying, and Patrick can do nothing but submit his open mouth to Pete’s and let Pete swallow him whole. It’s overwhelming and perfect, and Patrick breaks the kiss just so he can find Pete’s mouth again, a fistful of Pete’s bicep in his palms. 

Pete’s knees hit the kitchen tile with a noise that makes Patrick think that it has to hurt, and then Pete is dragging him down on top of him with his hands fisted in the front of Patrick’s shirt— and then Pete is fumbling with Patrick’s belt buckle and the button on his jeans and Patrick slams his head on the countertop hard enough to see stars as Pete undoes the zipper of his jeans, knuckles brushing the length of Patrick’s cock. Pete makes a strangled, desperate noise, and lurches forward, presses his forehead to Patrick’s hip as he pulls Patrick’s briefs down to his thighs. Pete presses dry kisses and tender love bites to the inside of his thigh, nose pressed into Patrick’s pale flesh. He bites at Patrick’s hip, harder just to watch him squirm, and finally wraps his wet mouth around Patrick’s cock, and Patrick laughs, shoves his fingers through Pete’s hair, and tries to remember how to breathe. 

Pete sucks him off drunk and enthusiastic, sloppy and wet, stunted noises around his cock making it blatantly obvious to Patrick that Pete has a hand wrapped around his own dick, and fuck, if that doesn’t make everything hotter. 

Pete’s mouth is slick with spit, and Patrick’s brain is still stuck on Pete kissing him, and now Pete’s hot mouth is somewhere else, and this is about to be over so quickly. Pete swipes his tongue over the head and Patrick bucks into his mouth instinctively, cock hitting the back of Pete’s throat, and Pete chokes, takes a shaky breath, and moans loudly. Pete shakily lifts a hand, striped with come, and it should be disgusting, but Patrick closes his eyes and whispers, “Fuck.” 

Patrick twists a hand in Pete’s hair and stutters out a warning, but Pete shakes his head, awkwardly around Patrick’s cock, and moans again, and Patrick hits his head on the countertop, takes a sharp inhale of breath, and comes with a low groan. 

Pete leans his face on Patrick’s thigh and breathes. Patrick brushes his hands through Pete’s hair softly until Pete stands up, awkwardly, Patrick holding him up and leaning against the counter. 

Pete kisses him against the counter, against the doorframe of the hallway, against the bathroom sink, and finally against the pillow. S till tipsy, the room spins behind Patrick’s eyes, but he watches Pete flip the lights in only his underwear and throws his knees over Pete’s waist in the dark. 

“Happy New Year,” Pete tells him with his face in Patrick’s neck. 

By some miracle of God, Patrick finds himself in his own apartment by 9AM. His shirt smells of Pete’s apartment, and Patrick buries his face in it and inhales until he has to cough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In honor of it being February, it's New Year's! You're 8.47% done with 2020-- keep it up! 
> 
> See you next week!


	4. In which Patrick receives an email.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"We lie best when we lie to ourselves."_ — Stephen King

_January, Year II_

Pete thinks about it and only it for the two days following. It follows him through his day off and his first real day of work in the new year, and he mulls it over quietly between his bedsheets while he waits for sleep to find him. He sits on his countertop the following morning and chews Honey Nut Cheerios with intense concentration and watches his phone on the counter beside him for signs of life. No one calls. Maybe he’s died. 

Patrick thinks his hangover might be permanent. Patrick studies his red eyes in the mirror and the smell of Pete’s cologne stuck to his shirt while he brushes his teeth in a sickly stupor. He can feel the cold press of Pete’s countertops into the backs of his shoulders and spine every time he blinks his heavy eyelids. It had been too easy, and since when does getting drunk render any positive consequence? This is his punishment; he suffers through a day at the office and plans to collapse into his duvet immediately after returning home and remain there for the rest of the evening.

Later, lying on his back across the bed and still fully dressed, Patrick makes a considering face at the crack in his plaster ceiling. It’s not really about the ceiling, though, and Patrick’s mind immediately provides him with the image of Pete’s mouth pressed to the inside of his thigh, and then he just really, really, wants a cigarette.  At the foot of the bed, Sonkie mewls and jumps from the floor to the bed, startling Patrick out of his trance. Patrick stares into her yellow eyes and inhales deeply, before announcing, “I’m just gonna call him.” Sonkie blinks. Patrick exhales. “Tomorrow, though,” Patrick says.

♥

As promised, Patrick calls him after two days of radio silence, and Pete is sitting on his living room carpet eating pistachios and betting on hockey with Gabe when he calls.

“The Caps won last night,” Gabe informs him. “They beat the Penguins, dude, we’re fucked this year.” 

“You’re a masochist. We have Bergeron.” 

The phone vibrates and Pete trips over himself lunging across the carpet. He answers the phone cheerfully, if not nervously, “Hey. You didn’t call me.” 

Like pulling teeth, Patrick swallows and says, “I’m— recovering from New Year’s.” He doesn’t know why his stomach flips. Pete laughs, and Patrick manages to stutter out, “Um, about the New Year’s party—”

“Yeah?” 

“About what happened, I just wanted to say—”

There’s a noise in the background, and Pete laughs. He’s chewing on something, too, and Patrick asks, irritated, “Are you busy?” 

“No, Gabe is here. I’ll put you on speaker.” 

Patrick’s fingers tighten around the phone. “Can I just call you later?” 

Gabe asks in his ear, “Hey, how was New Year’s? Do anything stupid?” 

“No,” Patrick replies drily. “Somehow I managed to behave myself.” He barks out a stilted laugh and thinks to himself, _No, you fucking did not!_

Pete grimaces. There are too many ways to interpret it ( _please don’t tell anyone about this, let’s not talk about this right now, let’s forget the whole thing ever happened_ ), and Pete imagines the worst and runs away with it. Anger and humiliation burn the same.

“Patrick, who’s going to win the Cup?” Gabe asks, oblivious, and just like that, they don’t talk about it. “And don’t say the Bruins.” 

“Do you want to go out with me and Gabe on Saturday?” Pete snaps, emotionless. “We’re going to the Fours to watch the game.”

Patrick’s only response is an enthusiastic, “What?” 

“Bruins versus Caps,” Pete and Gabe chide in unison.

Patrick makes an immediate decision not to go. “I have to work,” he lies, and then the part of his brain that beholds his weakness for Pete tugs at him. _Fuck that_ , Patrick thinks nastily, and says, “I’ll see you Friday, though.” 

“You should come,” Pete says. “It’ll be fun.”

Patrick is still stuck to the evidence that Pete still wants to see him after the events of New Year’s Eve. “I’ll let you know,” he replies, noncommittal, and hopes Pete will let it go, while knowing that Pete is unlikely to let it go.

Patrick ends the call quickly and tosses his phone down on the bed. The phone bounces twice and lands on the floor, and Patrick sweeps it off the carpet, thinking it’s only appropriate. If his twisted romantic side has any say, he will go to the Fours with Pete and Gabe and he will spend the night watching Pete flirt with girls and guys, and just watching Pete. 

“What’s on Friday?” Gabe asks, eyebrows raised. 

Pete swallows the lump in his throat. “It’s nothing,” he says, and then, “Stop looking at me like that.” 

♥

On the Friday after New Year’s, Patrick drops into the desk chair in his small twelfth-floor office and opens his inbox to find a compelling email. The email is arresting in timing and content and reads, 

> _Hi Patrick,_
> 
> _We just finished an internal hire and have an opening now for a journalism position. It’s a collaborative position and involves some photojournalism and some writing. I thought you might be interested in the writing part._
> 
> _I’ve attached the job description and my boss’s email. I haven’t officially volunteered you so no pressure. Let me know if you’re interested. I would be happy to be a reference or write you a recommendation._
> 
> _Thanks, Joe_

Patrick reads the email five times. Once initially, twice more to assure himself he’s not hallucinating, and twice again to absorb it. It’s a lot to consider, and even more planning and follow-through— two recommendations, an interview process, a portfolio, and a move — at least he’d have an inside connection. It feels surreal, and Patrick resists the impulse to lean into it and instead looks around his small office on the twelfth floor and swears to make no split-second decisions, as if he’s ever made a split-second decision, or any decision without months of deliberation and wallowing in every pro and con. He opens the email and the attached PDF in separate tabs and lets it sit for the day. 

He makes phone calls and emails back and forth with theirgraphics editor and he’s still considering it. He writes and works on formatting for most of the afternoon and he’s still considering it, so at the end of the day, Patrick sends a precursory email in reply. It’s nothing more than an elongated thanks and a promise to have a more decisive answer soon. He pulls his phone from his pocket on the elevator to the street and writes to Hayley, their editor and Patrick’s best confidante,  _Would you be willing to write a rec for me? Under the table? It’s for a job_

His phone buzzes in his hand almost immediately. 

_Are we still on for tonight,_ Pete writes. It’s only momentary, but Patrick’s heart drops. 

♥

“They’re supposed to be decent,” Patrick tells him when he meets Pete off the T in Harvard Square. The night is a local band at a venue with a full bar in Cambridge, and as it turns out, the bar is significantly better than the band, and they spend most of the show at the dark end of the bar. The bartender is tall and skinny and flirts shamelessly with Pete, and when Patrick’s had enough of watching them, he touches Pete’s knee under the bar and asks, “Do you want to go watch for a while?” 

The music has not improved in the last hour, so, “They suck,” Patrick yells. He grabs Pete by the back of the neck, mouth to his ear, and says, heart pounding, “Hey, uh— do you want a drink at my place?” He doesn’t know why he’s nervous— they don’t do nervous.

Pete wraps an arm around Patrick’s waist and tries for flippant. “Maybe you should buy me dinner first.” 

“Okay,” Patrick replies easily, and Pete laughs. “What do you want? I know a good sushi place.” 

On the sidewalk, Pete watches Patrick type on his phone with deft fingers, teeth in his lip, and stuffs his hands in the pockets of his coat. 

“Who are you texting?” Pete asks, if only to be challenging. 

“My editor.”

“At eleven on a Friday night? About what?” 

Patrick looks up from his phone with a look of disbelief, a look like _try me,_ and Pete reaches to fix Patrick’s collar and whispers thickly, “Changed my mind. Let’s skip dinner.” 

“We can go back to my apartment,” Patrick tells him, voice already strained, “But I have to warn you, it’s like a college student’s apartment. It’s not like— it’s just not as nice as your apartment, and also, I did not clean up.”

♥

The second floor of Patrick’s apartment building is nothing but a maze of long white hallways and numbered doors. Patrick drags a willing victim down the narrow hallways to apartment #362, and Pete makes some joke about getting lost, which Patrick ignores. Instead, he pulls Pete’s face to his just outside his apartment door and revels in Pete’s smooth exhale and Pete’s soft mouth against his. His fingers are cold from the January evening, but burning where they touch Pete’s shoulders, his chest feverish.

“Fuck, Patrick,” Pete tells him, Patrick’s face in his hands, and Patrick smolders. 

Patrick is high on Pete’s cologne and his own desire, and it’s a bit quixotical. Pete kisses him like there are cameras and an audience and Patrick is more than happy to play along, to indulge in his own ability to put on a show. He grinds his erection into Pete’s thigh, sweltering even through layers of denim, and bites at Pete’s mouth. Patrick willingly trades in his street sophistication for a bedroom persona in the apartment hallway, falls fast and hard, and lets Pete catch him in capable arms. 

“Let me suck you off,” Patrick whispers, but it’s too loud, echoing off the walls of the hallway, and Pete groans. A door slams, and Patrick laughs carelessly with Pete’s teeth against his earlobe. 

“I thought you were behaving yourself,” Pete cracks, his nose in Patrick’s hair. “Is fucking and lying about it behaving yourself?”

“Come on,” Patrick replies in a whisper, “Everyone does that.”

Pete fumbles with the door behind them, and Patrick stops him with his fingers around Pete’s wrist. 

“I know I said my apartment isn’t as nice as yours is, but—”

“Is there a bed?” 

Patrick stares at him blankly for a moment, eyes unfocused, and Pete touches his hip gently. “Yeah?” Patrick says after a moment. 

“And do I get to see you in it?” 

Patrick flushes crimson and feels his own thoughts vaporize. “Yeah, whatever you want.” 

“Then I literally don’t care.” 

Pete loses his shirt, his jeans, and his skin-tight boxers in the short hallway between Patrick’s living room and his bedroom, and Patrick trips on himself to follow, to wrap his hands and his mouth around Pete’s skin. Pete finds that the bedroom is inarguably Patrick’s— small and dimly lit, the room smells of Patrick’s aftershave and lemon-scented floor cleaner. The floor is littered with laundry, a smattering of sweatshirts and underwear that Patrick had obviously peeled off before going to bed. Patrick’s sheets are crumpled beneath his duvet and the bed looks slept in, Patrick’s sanctuary, and Pete is in love.

_Giving me head on the unmade bed,_

_While the limousines wait in the street._ — Chelsea Hotel No. 2

Patrick only adds to the collection of clothes already piled on the floor, stripping out of his t-shirt and jeans just to replace their warmth with Pete’s body laid across Patrick’s bed, vivid and enticing. Pete’s not pretending when he kisses him, like he was in the hallway; Pete’s mouth is filled with brutal honesty and more telling than Pete would care to admit. 

Ignoring the charged connection with them is a childish game, playing with liquor and emotions like teenagers, and Patrick loses his innocence with Pete’s cock against his tongue, eyes locked with himself in the same mirror he’d dressed in front of only hours ago. Pete makes him feel desirable, sexy even, so he swallows, listens to Pete’s blissful noises, and comes minutes later with Pete’s dark fingers on his cock and Pete’s mouth on his collar.

Patrick sits on his thighs afterward, just touching, and Pete tucks Patrick’s hair behind his ears as best he can and admires what he has to hold. The room is filled with a comfortable silence; Pete shatters it minutes later by asking, voice rough, “What were going to ask me on the phone the other day?”

“Oh,” Patrick starts, and frowns slightly. “It was nothing.”

“Okay,” Pete says. He looks between his bare chest and Patrick’s sweat-soaked hairline and flushed cheeks and suggests, “This? Our little secret?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes, kisses the corner of Pete’s mouth, and sinks his thumb into the crease of Pete’s hip. He rolls his hips against Pete’s and listens to Pete’s sharp inhale against his lips. “Our secret.”

“I like your apartment,” Pete tells him between kisses.

Patrick shoves at his shoulders and laughs. “No, you don’t, you haven’t even seen it,” he replies, and Pete pulls him down to the mattress as he falls backward, grinning. 

_February, Year II_

Pete falls in love in the bitter cold of the beginning of February, and Patrick shortly after. Between snow storms and record cold days, pressed together on the crowded T, the warmth of Pete’s chest bleeds into Patrick’s bicep through his coat. Patrick looks up at him, all chapped lips and windbitten cheeks, and Pete aches with how much he wants to kiss him breathless. Instead, he brushes a piece of lint from Patrick’s scarf and feels his fingers burn when Patrick whispers, “Thanks.”

After a rainy fall, Mother Nature chooses to pound the city with days of wet snow and wind. The freeze and refreeze is customary and only appropriate for Pete’s current mood. The wind batters the windows of Pete’s South End apartment, but both Pete and the apartment are warm inside. The evening out had been cold, but for now, Patrick lounges on Pete’s bed, eyed fixed on his laptop, while Pete reads stretched out beside him. Pete glances up at him every so often, and Patrick reaches for him when he catches Pete’s eye. 

“I’m going to bed soon,” Pete says softly when Patrick looks up at him. 

“I’ll pack up.” 

Pete swallows and chews on his lip for a moment. He says, “Um— you can stay if you want. You can stay up.” Patrick only nods, and the uncomfortable tension in the room dissipates. “Coffee tomorrow morning?” Pete asks. “I have to work.” 

“Yeah, sounds good.” 

A half-hour later, Patrick is wrapped in Pete’s duvet and a t-shirt and boxers, laptop plugged in on the kitchen island. They aren’t touching, but laid close. In the dark, only illuminated from the light from the streetlights through the blinds, Pete is scared to touch him. Their friendship is softer, more intimate somehow, and Pete fears ruining it with a stray hand. Instead, Pete stares at him in the dark until Patrick whispers, “What?” 

“Nothing,” Pete replies in a hoarse whisper. “I’m just tired.” 

Patrick hums and pulls the duvet over his head, heart fluttering. “Good night, then.”

♥

Patrick runs into Hayley in line at Pavement purely by accident. 

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to catch up with you,” she says brightly, coffee in hand, and Patrick feels his own face light up. 

Patrick encloses her in a one-armed embrace and asks, “Do you have a few minutes? I have a client meeting me in an hour.” 

Sitting at a small table in the back corner, Hayley asks, “You were at Gabe’s New Year’s thing, right? I didn’t see you.”

Patrick remembers with a pang of dread that Hayley and Erin are good friends. He thinks for a moment that they might have been college roommates before he lies smoothly, “Oh, I went home early. I wanted to get up and work the next morning.” 

“How much did you get done?”

“None— I was so fucking hungover,” Patrick says, and laughs. Hayley touches his hand across the table and gives him a knowing look, eyebrows raised. 

Hayley jumps into some local band she’d seen the previous weekend, and Patrick is grateful to discuss something, anything, with lower stakes. She asks about the band from the previous Friday night, and Patrick shakes his head. 

“I haven’t seen them,” he lies. It’s almost true, he supposes, if he considers that he’d only stayed for half of the show and spent most of the time at the bar. 

“I’ve heard mixed reviews. I might check them out,” she says. 

The rest of Patrick’s coffee goes down easily, listening to Hayley chat about music and shows she’s seen with her boyfriend, and her travel plans for the year.

“Do you still want that recommendation?” Hayley asks eventually. It’s getting late in the morning, and most of the morning customers have left, leaving behind a spread of exhausted college students and the elderly. Hayley looks around and says, “I want to finish it before things get busy in the spring. What’s the job?”

“Journalism, I think it’d be similar to what I’m doing now. I know the guy who sent it to me from school."  


“Where it is?” 

“Italy. Rome.” 

Hayley sets her coffee cup down on the table with intention and leans across the table. “You got offered a job in Rome and you’re asking me for a recommendation?”

“Well, I didn’t get offered the job, I—”

“Why are you still here?” Hayley cries. “It’s fucking February in Boston. Just leave!” 

“I’m just— I don’t want to jinx it, you know?” Patrick protests, and Hayley rolls her eyes.

“I’m writing you the recommendation. I have to leave now but I’ll write it this week,” Hayley promises as she stands to leave. She packs her reusable stainless coffee mug in her tiny tote bag and smiles, all teeth, before she teases, “Sorry, I have to ask—you and Pete?” 

Patrick feels his eyebrows crease. His cup of coffee is empty. “Pete and I what? Are we together?” 

Hayley laughs. “Yeah.”

Under Hayley’s kind scrutiny, Patrick panics. “No!” he snaps. “Who told you that?” It comes out hurriedly, and he silently chastises himself for the sheer number of lies he’s told in the last hour. Hayley’s face reveals nothing. 

“I was asked.” She throws her handbag over her shoulder and shrugs. “No one in particular.” Patrick opens his mouth to protest and Hayley quickly says, “I shouldn’t tell— it’s a rumor.” 

“Tell them they’re full of shit,” Patrick spits. “I have to go see my client, but we need to start hanging out more again. I need more friends, all mine do is drink.” 

Hayley’s grin is nothing if not teasing. “I’ll be sure to tell Gabe he’s full of shit,” she says, and extends her arm for a handshake. “Just text me, it’d be fun to hang out more.” 

Patrick leaves her on the sidewalk with a forced grin and a promise to talk soon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @battylite on tumblr, come hang out if ya nasty. 
> 
> Sorry this took so long! See you next week (hahaha...)


	5. In which Gabe delivers his second prophecy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know."_ — John Berendt

_April, Year II_

It’s not the last time Patrick hears of it. Pete and his law firm companions host a birthday party for Brendon on a warm April night. The party is extravagant for someone as undeserving as Brendon, drinks on the rooftop of the Colonnade Hotel, a desperate joining of old money and new money, and Patrick tells Pete a week in advance that his friends play with money like most people play card games, and Brendon in particular. 

Pete reaches for two wine glasses in his kitchen cabinet and says shortly, “Gorgeous, it’s politics. He kind of grows on you.”

“His parents bought him that job,” Patrick replies. “I’ve met him twice and I know his parents paid for that.” 

Pete sets the glasses on the counter and nods, then asks, “And what are you going to do about it?” Patrick only rolls his eyes. 

Pete meets him at the party and wraps Patrick in an enthusiastic, if not suffocating, hug as soon as they see each other. The rooftop is mostly dark, illuminated by streetlights and candles reflecting off glass tables, and they sit together in the far corner from the bar. Pete throws an arm over Patrick’s shoulders and buys him a drink, and two more, and another as the night goes on, and Patrick leans into his chest a little more with each drink. Sober, Patrick might be more cautious, but Patrick is tipsy on New York Sours and Pete’s warm presence. 

It is late by the time Pete gestures to the collection of crystalline cocktail glasses on the table and announces, “I’m going to get something else to drink.” 

Most of Brendon’s guests have gone home, and what is left is a number of career acquaintances and close friends. His face pressed to Pete’s shoulder, Patrick glances up at him out of the corner of his eye and sighs. 

“Can I get you something else?” Pete asks. “Maybe you would like a soda or a water?” 

Patrick pulls a face. “I would not like a soda. I want a Moscato— with seltzer.” He sets his glass, mostly empty, on the table with a soft noise and politely recites, “Please.” 

Pete laughs, gives him a syrupy grin, and quips, “Anything for you, Gorgeous,” before he shoves Patrick off of his lap and produces a twenty from his wallet. 

Patrick finishes the last of his cocktail as soon as Pete leaves, and only seconds later, Brendon falls into the seat across the table, mixed drink in hand. He is clearly drunk— after all, it is his party.

“So,” Brendon starts. He points to Patrick, and then Pete, across the room. “What is this?” 

Patrick raises an eyebrow, staring into the bottom of his empty glass, and then retorts, “All this and you still have a cash bar?” 

Brendon laughs, short and garish, and ignores the question completely. “Come on,” Brendon urges. “We’re friends, you can tell me— you’re getting it.” 

Patrick lightly hopes that the challenging look he gives Brendon makes it obvious that he doesn’t consider them to be friends. He looks between Pete and Brendon and says, “That’s presumptuous. Are you interested? All yours, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

Brendon warns, “Nothing stays a secret in this group,” a matter of explaining, and Patrick nods.

“Right, because you tell them?”

“I just hear things.” He shrugs and tips his glass to Patrick. Patrick returns a livid look. 

“Is he bothering you on your birthday?” Pete asks Brendon at the moment he returns. He rakes his fingers through Patrick’s hair with the same syrupy smile stuck to his mouth, and Patrick reaches for his drink.

“Fuck you,” Patrick declares fondly, and then after a sip of his spritzer, “Come sit with me.” Brendon leaves with a slap of his palm on the table and a smug wink. Patrick gives him another scathing look, settles into Pete’s lap, and insists, “Try it.” 

Pete leans down to press his mouth to Patrick’s forehead and murmurs, “Oh, are you sharing? That’s new.” 

The grin Patrick gives him in return is all teeth and tipsy, and Pete drapes himself over Patrick’s shoulder, his nose to Patrick’s neck, without a second thought. He kisses Patrick’s temple, his cheekbones, the soft spot just below Patrick’s ear and figures with little conscious thought that they’ve both drank enough to claim to be drunk— drunk enough to make poor decisions and blame it on tainted judgment. 

“Hey,” Pete breathes, and tries the classic line, “You should come home with me.”

It still makes Patrick’s chest burn, a little anticipatory, a little apprehensive. His tongue stuck to the inside of his lip, Patrick drags his thumb down the side of his wine glass. It leaves a line in the condensation, and Patrick wipes his thumb on his jeans and searches for prying eyes. It’s dark in the corner they’re sat in, at least dark enough that no one is likely to notice Pete’s hands sinking lower on Patrick’s hips, or the way Patrick drops his head to his shoulder and lets Pete leave kisses on his hairline.

Patrick gives a small and hesitant noise. Pete laughs. His breath is hot on Patrick’s neck, and Pete kisses his neck with lazy flicks of his tongue, hands still creeping down his hips, and Patrick reaches back to wrap one hand around Pete’s thigh. 

“Yeah?” Pete whispers. 

Patrick doesn’t reply. Instead, he touches Pete’s chin with soft fingers, then leans backward, lets Pete find his mouth. It’s sloppy and the angle is awkward, Pete hovering above his shoulder and Patrick leaning against him, and Patrick feels the hair on his forearms prickle and tries not to care about Brendon’s invasive questions, or the fact that Pete’s mouth feels a little more like home every time. It’s Pete, or rather, it’s just Pete and this is as good as it gets, as close as they allow themselves to be with each other in front of friends. Patrick wraps his arm around Pete’s neck, pulls him closer, and Pete’s mouth tastes like soda and alcohol, an unfortunate reminder that they never do this sober. 

It’s hot, getting hotter every time Pete’s hands slide closer to Patrick’s ass, and Patrick gives him a blank look. He whispers, “I’m so over it. Let’s go downstairs.”

Pete squeezes his hip and swallows, and Patrick leaves the wine glass on the table, or at least he thinks he does, and manages to peel himself off of Pete long enough to slide through the rooftop door and back through the hotel, immune to anyone’s watchful eyes.

“So here’s the thing,” Patrick tells him between the walls of the corridor. “I have this _thing_ , and it’s due in my boss’s inbox by eight tomorrow morning, but—” He presses his mouth to Pete’s jaw and continues, “We should do something tomorrow night.” 

“I can’t cancel on Gabe again, he’ll kill me,” Pete replies.

“Then next weekend, just not Friday because—” Patrick goes to push open the door to the parking garage and laughs, “I accidentally stole this.” 

He holds up one empty wine glass, and Pete shoves open the door and says, “You’re not bringing that back, Gorgeous, that’s yours now. “ 

The top level of the garage is deserted of cars and people, a dark asphalt expanse to fill with childish antics and nonsensical affirmations. There’s a sense of detachment that blankets them both, and Pete inhales until he’s dizzy, grinning, and watches as Patrick dangles the glass over the edge and counts the rows of cars to the street. 

“Six stories,” Patrick declares, and laughs brightly.

Pete’s arms slide over his sides to wrap around his waist, and teeth to the back of Patrick’s neck, he teases, “Drop it.” The look Patrick gives him is reckless and inquisitive, and Pete nudges his bicep and whispers, half laughing, “Just fucking drop it.” 

Patrick drops it, but he can only assume it falls the six stories, because Pete hauls him backward with steady hands and kisses his neck, his ear, his face. 

“See, Gorgeous?” Pete laughs, and then whispers, like divulging a secret, “Sometimes you have to take a risk.” 

Retroactively, Pete thinks it’s a trivial thing to say, and hopes Patrick assumes he’s hinting about the kiss on Gabe’s front sidewalk, or asking Patrick to come home with him with a not-so-subtle line on New Years, but stuck between Pete’s hands, Patrick lets his head fall back against Pete’s shoulder and thinks, in a heightened state of delirium, _Ah— if only you knew._

Pete kisses him sitting on the concrete guardrail, his hands on Patrick’s face, and Patrick folds his arms over Pete’s ribcage and tries to forget for the second time in one night. Pete lets his hands wander, Patrick’s lower back, his hips, his thighs, and finally whispers, “Fuck.” 

It’s colder now, and damp, and Patrick flushes hot and cold simultaneously and presses his forehead to Pete’s. Pete blinks, inches from Patrick’s face, and Patrick laughs through a breath and says, “Yeah.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay over?” 

“Yeah, ” Patrick says, tinged with disappointment this time. “Sorry.” 

“No sorries,” Pete tells him. “It’s whatever you want.” 

Pete holds him close, Patrick’s face pressed to his shoulder, and Patrick shivers and sighs and finally breathes, “God, I need to go to bed. I already feel like shit tomorrow.”

“T or Uber home?” 

“You couldn’t pay me to take the T right now.

Huntington Avenue is relatively quiet for a Friday night. Patrick waits for his ride under the porte-cochère with the collar of his jacket pulled up around his neck, and tries to leave Pete with a half-hug and an awkward slap on the back goodbye. Pete drags him back in for a real hug and kisses his neck, then his mouth, soft and warm and pliable, and Patrick laughs and says, “Let me know when you get home.” 

“You let me know when you get home,” Pete retorts, but it’s warm, and Patrick kisses him once more before he pulls the car door open and slides into the backseat. 

Sobering up on public transport is a skill that can be practiced, but never mastered. The driver glances in the rearview and Patrick is certain he looks absolutely fucked. His mouth is swollen, color bleeding into the skin around his lower lip, and Patrick touches his mouth with two fingers thoughtlessly. There’s WBUR talk radio on the stereo in the car and Patrick startles himself from his thoughts with a sharp inhale and shoves his hand in his pockets in search of his earbuds. He feels satisfied and comfortable in his own skin in a way he rarely experiences, and by the time the car crosses Harvard Bridge, Patrick busies himself flipping through unanswered texts on his phone and forgets about Brendon’s invasive inquiries completely. 

Pete pushes the button to cross the street and relishes in the small victory when the signal immediately changes to walk. The night had been full of small victories, and Pete pulls his headphones over his ears the moment he swipes his train pass through the reader and in nearly every sense, falls asleep. He doesn’t let his eyes fall closed, however, until Patrick texts him forty minutes later. _Did I drop that off the front or the back of the parking garage,_ and then, _Need to know so I can sleep tonight._

_May, Year II_

Erin spends the beginning of May sick with a ruthless cold, and Pete plays the best friend game and brings over tubs of chicken soup and fried rice and staple groceries. Erin opens the front door with dripping eyes and a tissue in one hand and refuses to let him leave without eating, so Pete eats chicken soup with his elbows on Gabe’s tiny kitchen island and tries not to breathe. 

“If you inoculate me with this disease just because I’m standing in this kitchen, you owe me a week’s pay-cheque,” Pete gripes. 

Gabe ignores him fully and says, as if the thought had only just come to him in a vision, “You know that guy that used to be at your law school parties all the time? You should go out with his brother.” 

Pete drops his spoon into his soup and puts his face in his hands. Law school parties had been a flurry of disappointing hook-ups and Adderall on weekends and after exams, a stunning array of rich kids and weird geniuses, and Pete had always felt slightly out of place. As a result, he had dragged Gabe to nearly every party, and they had spent three years breaking up couples and wreaking drunken chaos. 

Pete thinks for a moment and only produces a catalogue of names and blurry faces. He tells Gabe, “I don’t need you to play fucking matchmaker for me all the time.”

Gabe eggs at him. “Come on. He’s skinny and weird, just your type.” 

“Fuck off. That’s not even fucking true.” 

“He doesn’t have to be the love of your life,” Gabe says. “Just fuck him and get on with it.” 

Pete pulls a face. It’s a callous statement and one that Pete would usually find amusing, but instead, he rolls his eyes and refuses to consider why it peeves him.

Gabe gives him an expectant look and Pete replies, “I already have someone to fuck with. Not interested.” 

It tastes dirty and feels worse. Patrick is not, in fact, someone to fuck with— it’s not masturbatory, and Patrick is rather beautiful, and Pete spends most of their nights together more concerned with Patrick’s needs than his own. He’s been shoving that uncomfortable realization into unconscious storage for the length of the spring season, but much like his mother’s unnecessary comments about what could have been a professional soccer career, it keeps coming back up. Pete takes a sip of water and immediately chokes. 

“Ha!” Gabe barks. “I fucking knew it!” Pete shakes his head and coughs and Gabe cups his hands around his mouth and teases, “We used to go out _every Friday._ I’m not mad— I told you you’d like each other.” 

Pete gives him a seething look and manages to swallow both an awkward smile and the rest of his water. Gabe glows, and Pete aims for his wrist and grits out, “And what about it? No one’s like, in love.”

“It’s just for fun,” Pete tells him when he’s regained composure. Gabe’s smile is doubting, and Pete reiterates, “We’re just friends.”

“Oh, dude,” Gabe says. It’s accusing and interrogating, and Pete stares at the ceiling. “You are going to get your poor fucking heart broken.” 

“I’m not,” Pete replies, aloof. It sounds like the truth.

_Lies can buy you eternity,_ _I see you leaving,_

_So I push record and watch you leave._ — Music to Watch Boys To

Patrick is book fodder, or something like it, because Pete finishes part two of the book in a flurry of inspiration around the same time the local colleges get out for the semester, and the city becomes strangely empty. Patrick spends the weekend draped across the couch in the South End apartment, on his laptop or on his phone, chewing gum permanently stuck to his teeth.

Pete watches him from a barstool in the kitchen, and Patrick closes his laptop with intent and pointedly informs him, “You promised me weed.”

“I should tell you something,” Patrick says an hour later. Pete stares at him blankly and reaches for the television remote. With the television inoperative, the room is eerily silent. 

“Yeah,” Pete replies. “Tell me.”

Patrick hums and thinks for a moment before he reveals, “I got an email about a job in Italy. I kind of want it.” He watches Pete’s face and waits for the giveaway look of disappointment, the slight frown and the eyebrow twitch. 

Instead, enigmatic like he usually is, Pete surprises him, and asks, mouth twisted in thought, “Did you apply? You should apply.” 

Patrick stares at him and laughs. “I’ve been waiting to tell you. I got it months ago; I thought you’d be upset.” 

“Upset about what,” Pete teases then, grinning, and Patrick snatches the blunt from his fingers and grinds it against the table. He gives Pete a calculating smirk, no teeth, and climbs across his thighs carefully. His tongue flat to Pete’s neck, Patrick pushes him back gently against the arm of the couch and rolls his hips. 

“My sister lives in Paris,” Pete breathes, his hands twisted in the back of Patrick’s shirt. “I’ll come visit you.” 

It’s too easy. Nothing should ever be this easy. 


	6. In which Patrick is dealt a delicate hand.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"It was all glimmer and warm honey in the yellow light."_ —Patrick Rothfuss

_July, Year II_

Summer moves like a dream. The city is illuminated in the warmer months but full of day tourists and college students in summer classes with too much time to kill, and the Saporta family’s Newport house is a sanctuary from the constant tumult of the metropolis. While most students are home, the magazine dwindles into its annual summer break, and Patrick abandons his adult responsibilities for the weekend to devote himself to the Eden of Gabe’s backyard at the mercy of an insatiable Pete. Their commitment-less honeymoon phase feels interminable; Pete catches Patrick’s mouth in his whenever Patrick’s skin brushes his, and Patrick drowns himself in summer naivety and craft beer.

Pete pulls himself out of the pool with a little momentum, biceps flexed, swimming shorts clinging to the swell of his ass and the back of his thighs, and subtly unabashed, Patrick watches as Pete leans over the water to banter with Gabe. Gabe is saying something about sunscreen and self-tanner, and Pete swings at him playfully, laughing when Gabe grabs at his ankles in return. Patrick’s gaze drifts to the back of Pete’s shoulders, a subtle magnetism that pulls at the pit of Patrick’s stomach, and Gabe catches his glances and gives Patrick a wink and a shit-eating grin. Pete seems oblivious, and Patrick pulls his lower lip into his mouth and shows Gabe his middle finger.

_Topanga’s hot tonight, I’m taking off my bathing suit,_

_You made me feel like there’s something I never knew._

_—_ The Next Best American Record

Later, Pete strips out of his bathing suit in Gabe’s upstairs bathroom, now fully nude, and presses his damp body to Patrick’s. They smell of chlorine and sugar from the alcohol, and Pete exhales against Patrick’s hairline and inhales the scent of summer and Patrick’s deodorant. Patrick kisses him, fully dressed, sunglasses balanced on the end of his nose, and Pete could cease to exist then. With Patrick’s hands spread wide on his lower back, Pete lets the memory burn into the back of his mind like the sun on the tarmac of the liquor store parking lot, and melts from it. 

“You never go swimming,” Pete tells him. “I want you to swim with me.”

He’s just on the verge of complaining, and Patrick sighs and replies, “I’ll go swimming tomorrow.”

“You always say that. We’re gonna run out of tomorrows.”

Pete presses his fingertips into the back of Patrick’s neck where he knows there’s a bruise from tongue and teeth (he’d left it there, after all), and Patrick pushes his sunglasses to the top of his head and drops to his knees. Gabe’s bathroom does nothing to dampen the noise Pete makes when Patrick takes Pete’s cock into his sugar-sticky mouth, and Pete strangulates the _I love you_ forming on his tongue and whispers, “Fuck, Gorgeous,” instead, fingers tangled in Patrick’s hair.

♥

The weekend ends Sunday night and it’s late by the time they replace the sunshine high with something more organic, back in the city and sprawled over the floor of Patrick’s living room in nothing but underwear. The air conditioner roars on the highest setting in the window, but it’s still broken from the previous summer and Patrick still sweats into the carpet. Pete tangles their fingers together over his head and breathes in. The apartment smells like weed and pool water from Pete’s second wet bathing suit, which had been haphazardly deposited on Patrick’s bedroom floor in exchange for dry underwear.

“Why’re we here if your air conditioner is broken?” Pete cracks. There’s a slow smile sliding onto his face, and Patrick laughs.

“Too much decadence,” Patrick replies easily, and contented, Patrick squeezes Pete’s hand in his and stretches his legs, and a minute later, Pete wrestles his hand from Patrick and rolls to his stomach. He grabs at the blunt in Patrick’s hand and ignores the dirty look Patrick gives him.

“Tell me about Italy,” Pete demands. He takes a drag off the blunt and raises his eyebrows at Patrick. Patrick rolls over and considers him sleepily, and Pete exhales, laughs, and asks, “You’d really move back?”

“Oh, yeah,” Patrick says quickly, and Pete gives him a questioning look, propped up on his elbows on the carpet. “As soon as there’s nothing keeping me here, I’m moving.”

Pete’s smile is innocent, spreading across his mouth and barely meeting his eyes, but his gaze flickers to Patrick’s thighs and his hands, barely noticeable.

“And what’s keeping you here now?” Pete insists. It’s tantalizing, teasing, a perfect Catch-22, and when Patrick blinks at him, Pete is all stupid smile and dark features. Patrick bites at the inside of his cheek and hates him in the moment almost as much as he aches to spread him out and destroy every vexing word with his own tongue.

Patrick shrugs instead. He chooses to stare at the opposite window in place of Pete’s broad shoulders and says, “My friends and my job, I think. My apartment’s not bad, for me.”

Pete looks around as if considering the space, and replies, “Yeah, the apartment’s not bad.” 

Patrick’s sharp laugh interrupts Pete’s snort. “You know, man, fuck off.” 

“I’m serious,” Pete says when he’s done laughing. “Where’d you live?”

“Brescia, with my grandparents.” 

“Okay, and why’d you move?” 

“I don’t know, really. I wanted a job and I liked BU. I was seventeen.” 

Pete scoffs. “That’s boring, we’ve gotta get you a better backstory.” 

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Patrick drawls with an eye roll, and then, “What’s my backstory?” 

Despite the heat, the hair on the back of Patrick’s neck rises when Pete’s face slides into an anticipatory grin. Pete considers him silently for a moment and then reveals, “You were betrayed by a lover. The heartbreak was so bad you had to leave the country.” 

“I was seventeen,” Patrick repeats dully. Pete swipes his tongue over his lower lip, and Patrick asks, “Then what happens?” 

“In your darkest hour, you meet a hot American man and fall in love. It’s a romance for the ages. You have _a lot_ of nasty sex.” 

Patrick nods and agrees, “Obviously.” 

“I’m not done,” Pete snaps lightly. “The twist is that you’re fated to be with your former lover, so you reunite, move back, fall in love again, and then have a lot of passionate, romantic sex.”

He’s grinning, and Patrick rolls his eyes before saying, “This should be your next book.” 

Pete kisses him. 

Pete’s mouth is hot and inviting and the room is feverish. Patrick melts against him, and with Pete’s tongue pressed against his and Pete’s fingers intertwined with his, Patrick feels gelatinous, like if he pushed any harder, his fingers would dissolve into Pete’s. Pete’s hair is peaked with sweat and from being pressed into the carpet, and Patrick inhales shakily when his mind supplies images of Pete’s morning-after bedhead. Pete holds Patrick’s face in his hands, awkward while spread across the carpet, and Patrick shoves at his shoulders until Pete sits up and crawls into Pete’s lap.

Patrick paws at Pete’s chest, sticky with unwashed pool water. Pete makes a small noise when Patrick brushes over a nipple, and Patrick revels in it, presses his half-hard cock to Pete’s stomach, and listens to Pete’s noises get longer, more desperate.

It’s boyish and feels experimental, and everything is slow, stunted by the humidity. Sweat rolls down Patrick’s spine, into the waistband of his briefs, and Pete pulls them over the swell of his ass, around his thighs, and presses his hot cock against Patrick’s. 

“Is this okay?” Patrick says thickly, and feels Pete nod against him. 

“Patrick, yes,” Pete groans, and Patrick swallows the moan Pete makes when Patrick extricates his cock from the waistband of his boxers.

Patrick ruts against him with the desperation of a man who has only all the time in the world, face buried in Pete’s neck. Pete sweats underneath him, urging his hips up until his cock lays in the crease of Patrick’s hip, and Patrick wraps his fingers around Pete’s cock, one at a time, and swipes his thumb over the head. Patrick drags himself over Pete’s chest more erratically with every soft noise, Pete’s fingers pressing into his shoulders. Patrick makes a stifled noise, like suffocating a moan with a laugh, and Pete comes silently moments later, spilling over Patrick’s thumb and his own chest. Patrick follows shortly after, Pete’s come slick between them. He comes on a sharp inhale, and Pete holds him against his chest and traces his tongue against the roof of Patrick’s mouth.

It’s hot, hot between them, hot in the apartment, and hot on the sidewalk outside. Patrick’s itchy carpet is crushed into Pete’s back, and it burns, only worsened by the day’s sun. It’s hot, but Pete can’t bring himself to care with Patrick’s mostly naked body draped over him, head still foggy from the weed and chasing an orgasm. Time moves slowly, suspended in the humidity, and Patrick’s pulse pounds lethargically against Pete’s stomach. Patrick’s swollen mouth is greasy as he works on Pete’s neck until Pete is passively grinding against him again.   


“Oh, remember you owe me one,” Patrick slurs across Pete’s shoulder, and Pete drags his hand down the length of Patrick’s spine and arches against him, asking. 

Pete clears the debt in the shower shortly after, lips wrapped around Patrick’s cock and listening to Patrick’s incoherent ramblings. Pete blinks at him, slow and misty-eyes, and moans in response, drools on the shower floor, and Patrick chokes. Patrick comes silently with emotions stirring under his skin and his hands in his own hair. 

Pete turns the water off and presses himself to Patrick. Patrick clings to him in return, still dripping, and whispers, “One month left of summer.”

Pete stills and says nothing. How they get from the bathroom to Patrick’s bedroom is unknown—Pete holds him up while Patrick clutches at him, and then they’re spread over the bed, mirroring the living room floor with near perfection. It’s too hot to touch. A singular flat sheet separates them from the humidity of the shower and the streets outside, and Pete settles into the mattress and pretends he can pretend. 

“I’m going to apply for that job,” Patrick mumbles. 

In the dark, Pete blinks. “I thought you’d already decided you were going to.” 

Mostly comatose, Patrick replies, “Yeah, but now I’m really going to.”

The thing about the summer sun, though, is that it dries up most things, but Patrick’s cold eyes and pale skin are a necessary relief from the burden of the heat. Long summer days evaporate into one another too quickly, the city never slows down, but the colder seasons offer a new host of complications, and Pete fears the first cold day of fall. The summer months are blindingly hot, stifling, and Pete is suffocating, but he presses himself to Patrick’s sleeping body anyways; Patrick is snow in July.

_August, Year II_

Patrick submits the application on the most humid day of the year, stripped to his underwear and standing next to the tiny window in his kitchen. It’s just past six in the evening, and there’s a small cross-breeze if he focuses on the feeling of the wind on his body, the slight prickle of the hair on his forearms and thighs. Cars pass, victims of the Doppler shift, outside the open window, and Patrick’s phone buzzes incessantly next to the sink. He silences the phone by flipping it face down and sighs at his computer screen, shifting his weight from one hip to the other. 

He’d finished editing and rewriting the previous day, sat in Pete’s air-conditioned personal office, and Pete had come home from Whole Foods and offered him a beer, and then Pete had sucked him off under tepid water before tossing Patrick’s limp body in bed, where he had dozed off for most of the evening. The summer had been perfect, really, and Patrick sees the application as the final signature on summer’s sign-off. 

He calls Hayley the moment the pop-up tells him the email was successfully sent, and tells her, “Summer is officially dead.” 

“That’s nice,” Hayley quips. “You should do something, go celebrate.” 

“You know,” Patrick says. “I thought I’d be more excited— I think I just feel guilty.”

“You got dealt a delicate hand,” Hayley replies, wise beyond her years. 

Patrick exhales adrenaline through an uncomfortable laugh, but he doesn’t get it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've stuck around for this long, a sincere sincere thank you!! Questions, comments, concerns appreciated as always! 
> 
> @battylite on Tumblr.


	7. In which there is a Purple Fall.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I can't fix my mouth to say how I feel."_ — Alice Waler, The Color Purple

_September, Year II_

Fall slips into the city under the radar. The temperature drops from a warm seventy degrees to high forties in a week, and Patrick finds himself in a sweater over his button-ups earlier in the year than anticipated. After the summer lull, the semester starts back up with its usual bang and the magazine launches into full production until Christmas, so Patrick spends his workweeks training new students on top of his usual responsibilities. If pressed, Patrick will admit that the interns (co-ops, they call them) are not his favorite part of the job, and are often more hindrance than help. 

Hayley closes the door of Patrick’s office and drops three marked-up drafts on his desk Wednesday afternoon, and Patrick looks over the pile to Hayley, leaning against the side of his desk, and sighs. He takes a fistful of hair in his hands and mutters, “You have something to tell me.” 

“Only that I’ll have three more of these for you by the end of the week,” she says lightly, and Patrick rolls his eyes to the ceiling and shakes his head. “And I was going to ask if you want company to that show on Friday.”

“Yes!” Patrick says, too quickly, and then, more slowly, “I, uh— I usually go with Pete, but it should be fine.”

“Oh, you don’t have to cancel.” Hayley gives him a considering look and then a derisive smile, “But you brought it up.” 

Patrick rests his elbows on his cluttered desk and stares at her, all uncombed hair and bruised undereyes. The buttons on his shirt are mismatched and he can’t remember if he wore the black pants twice or three times last week, but they’re clean enough. There are papers sorted into piles on the desk and they might have meant something at some point but it’s a mystery now. Patrick drops Hayley’s papers into a random pile and makes a note to figure it out later. He gives a stifled laugh and tells her, “No, it’s fine, I really should— and you know what? It’s really great. It’s just— great. I’m not— I’m not stressed about it at all.” 

Hayley gives him a fast once-over and manages to abstain from the grimace. “Are we talking about Pete or the application?” 

“Hayley, my summer was idyllic,” Patrick mopes, and glances towards the door to make sure it is both closed and free of open ears. The door is firmly shut, so Patrick continues, voice low, “And now there’s children in my office and I haven’t gotten laid in a week, and I think my application got lost in the cloud because I haven’t heard anything back yet. Oh, and did you notice we’re missing a co-op this morning? She says she has a migraine, and I gave her something that has to be done by Friday, but yeah, things are really going great right now. ” 

Hayley listens with a watchful eye and finally asks, “So show and a glass of wine this weekend?”

Patrick drops his forehead to the mess of prints and red pens on his desk and exhales. “Yes, please,” and then, incredulously, “How am I already behind on drafts?” 

“Here’s the thing,” Hayley advises Friday night. She leans over the arm of her red velour couch and hands Patrick a glass and a fork. “Madeira— it’s interesting but good,” she notes, and continues, “You know this, but this is a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity and if you get it and don’t take it, I’m going to call you stupid.” 

Patrick sits cross-legged on the couch and stabs at his Sweetgreen salad. The show was good, although not great, and Patrick is feeling open-minded and satisfied. “Yeah, but what are the chances, realistically, that I get picked?” 

Hayley rolls her eyes. “You have an inside connection and two fantastic fucking references. You’re qualified on more than one account and you’re good at your job. Maybe you should be a little more deliberate about how you think about it. You just seem, I don’t know, ambivalent?” 

He chews and thinks for a moment and wallows in the both uncomfortable and liberating feeling of being called on your bullshit. It feels like tough love or a shove in the right direction, and Patrick eventually confesses, “I have a superstition that if I tell someone that something will happen before it does, it won’t happen. If I’m excited about something, it has to be a secret, or I’ll jinx it.” 

“You’re serious about that?” 

Patrick gawks at her. “Yes!” 

“Don’t you think you’re just saying that because regardless of what happens, you won’t like the result?”

“What do you mean?” 

Hayley sets her glass and silverware on the side table and explains, “If you don’t get the job, nothing changes, and you keep writing for the start-up and you can keep doing whatever the fuck you’re doing with Pete. If you do get the job, then you pack up your shit and move and probably end things. Maybe you’ll be disappointed either way, but I don’t think it’s as much of a risk as you’re making it out to be.”

“Which is why I’m trying not to make it a big deal.” 

“God, do I really have to spoon-feed you this?” Hayley laughs. “There will always be another opportunity, and there will always be another guy. Pick one.”

“Yeah,” Patrick replies, “But I like this one.” There’s a beat in which Patrick sits back into the couch and considers what he’s just admitted. Hayley watches him with a tired look, and Patrick takes a moment to roll it around in his mouth, feel the edges and the way it slides off his tongue, before he continues shortly, “I mean—”

Hayley interrupts him. “Does he know that? Do _you_ know that?”

Patrick opens his mouth to protest and abruptly closes it again. He shrugs and pretends to be overly interested in his dinner. Hayley’s boyfriend comes in then, and Patrick is glad to have kept his mouth shut when Hayley kisses him by way of greeting. Patrick stares at his shoes on Hayley’s coffee table and thinks feels a twinge of disdain for the open expression of adoration and simple domesticity, and then Hayley turns back around to face him and says, “All I’m saying is that if you want the job, then that’s what you should put your energy into.” 

Patrick makes a face. “Why do I feel like it’s not that simple?” 

“Because you don’t know what you want,” Hayley tells him like it’s obvious, because it is. She shrugs. “Maybe you should, like, take a break for a while. Some space might be good.”

♥

Patrick meets him Sunday mid-morning at Jaho, a tiny and expensive coffee shop minutes from Pete’s apartment. Pete arrives a fashionable five minutes late and drops into the chair across from Patrick, thoroughly unashamed. White sneakers and legs stretched out beside the table, Pete stares across Washington Street and says, “Maybe I should take up yoga.” 

Patrick takes a sip of his hot tea and scoffs. “If you have enough time to consider taking up yoga in your free time, you need to get something else to worry about. Seriously, if I ever tell you I'm going to yoga, you can take me behind the barn and shoot me, Old Yeller style.” 

Pete stares at him over his sunglasses for a moment before his face splits into a stark grin. “Yeah,” he argues, “But it’s so young professional.” 

Patrick watches him order coffee and tip the barista over the lid on his tea and considers Hayley’s counsel for what seems like the infinith time in two days. Lying awake past midnight the previous night with Sonkie purring in the corner of the bed, Patrick had concluded that maybe some space would be valuable, even if only because he feels like he’s drowning in work. Watching Pete now, he reaches the opposite conclusion. He feels thoroughly moody, whether from lack of sleep or being indecisive, and he must come off as contentious, because Pete gives him a look and asks, “What’s wrong? Do you want anything?”

Patrick shakes his head. “Nothing.” 

“You’re sulking.” 

“I’m not,” Patrick replies. 

Pete considers him for a moment. He then asks, “Do you have plans for the afternoon?” He plays with his sunglasses on the table, and Patrick shakes his head again.

“Walk me home, then?” Pete suggests, and Patrick nods and tosses his empty cup into the nearest garbage can.

And sprawled over each other on Pete’s leather couch not an hour later, the one Patrick hates, Pete bites his earlobe, and Patrick makes a flustered noise and puts both his hands in Pete’s chest. 

“Pete, wait—” Patrick breathes. Pete shoves himself backward and fixes him with a concerned look, and Patrick takes a moment to breathe and continues, “Sorry, I just want to make sure, like— if it’s not fun, then we call it off, right? That’s the agreement?” 

“Yeah,” Pete replies carefully, his nose inches from Patrick’s face. The room briefly descends into a deafening silence. and Patrick’s fingers twitch against Pete’s side. “But I’m still having fun— if you are.” 

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just—” 

He doesn’t finish the thought, and Pete looks between Patrick’s wide eyes and open mouth and asks, “You’re sure?” 

“God, yeah,” Patrick tells him, nodding, and slides his thumbs into the waistband of Pete’s sweatpants. “Yeah, this is perfect.”

♥

The call comes early the next Wednesday morning, an unknown number that lights up his office phone with a blinking red light. He knows who it is, a sneaking suspicion, and Patrick stares at the red light and stills himself before he answers the phone.

“Hey, it’s Joe,” Joe says, much too casual, and Patrick frowns slightly. “I got your application, talked to my boss. She wants to know if you can interview in a couple of weeks.” 

Patrick blinks. He says, rather stupidly, “Over the phone?” 

“Yeah,” Joe continues, “And I’m sorry it took this long to get back to you. They only want to hire someone if they’re a perfect fit, so we’ve been sitting on it a while.”

“No worries,” Patrick replies. It’s horribly trivializing, and Patrick rolls his eyes at himself for the comment and for spending the majority of his free time in the last month stressing over the application and the forthcoming calls. He opens his laptop calendar and tries to sound personable. 

In the end, Joe sends him a number of invitations via email. None are ideal, but Patrick picks one at random and promises to move the rest of his prior engagements. 

“It’s at the end of the month,” he says to Hayley later, snacking in her corner office. “I think I’m going to take the afternoon off.” 

“So you get a couple weeks for prep,” Hayley replies. “That’s not bad. Do you have the markups for that Master Slaps piece?” 

Patrick abruptly laughs. “For the co-op? Not yet, and do you think if I never give it back to him, he’ll eventually forget about it? It’s already been a month.” 

“Please just do your job.” 

“I do have that DAP thing, though,” Patrick tells her, “You’re going to miss me so much.” 

“Get out.”

♥

The gig at DAP is, in Patrick’s opinion, awful. He had turned down an invite for drinks from Gabe to go, and while wrapping up cords and packing up someone else’s shitty car, Patrick thinks his time would have been better spent watching Pete and Gabe piss each other off. He also desperately wishes he were drunk. Pete texts him with impeccable timing to ask how the show was, and Patrick wastes no time in texting back, _Really fucking bad._

_there’s always next time gorgeous,_ Pete writes in return, and Patrick fumbles blindly with the phone, stumbles to his text thread with Pete, and hits the call icon. 

“Hi,” he breathes, grinning against his phone. “I need a beer desperately, can I come over?”

“I’m still out with Gabe,” Pete replies. “We’re at Lir, come hang out— or, I’ll leave soon and meet you at home.”

Patrick says his goodbyes after giving Gabe a short apology, and while slamming his finger against the _end call_ icon, he realizes that he’s completely neglected to mention the interview. He buys a six-pack of beer on the way to Pete’s apartment and leaves it abandoned on Pete’s kitchen floor when Pete comes home and slides his hand into the pocket of Patrick’s jeans and says between kisses pressed to the back of Patrick’s neck, “Longest—week—ever.”

_I feel so alone on a Friday night,_

_Can you make it feel like home if I tell you you're mine?_

_It’s like I told you, honey. —_ Born to Die 

Pete is a tease. He bites at the inside of Patrick’s thighs and the soft flesh below his navel, kisses away the sting, and traces each of Patrick’s ribs and the crease of his hip with careful fingers, barely touching. He presses his thumbs into pink nipples and occasionally crawls back up Patrick’s warm body to lay kisses over his cheekbones and nose until Patrick finds Pete’s mouth with his, and then Pete kisses him both generous and selfish. 

Patrick rakes one hand through Pete’s tousled hair and folds the other in the bedsheets. Pete adores him with all available means, and Patrick loves it, loves every small appreciative noise Pete makes for him and the feeling of Pete’s fingertips sunk into the backs of his thighs. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his mind, he thinks it’s narcissistic, or self-centered at best, but Pete seems to be hot on it, so Patrick whines and feels teeth sink further into his skin. 

Patrick’s knee thrown over the back of his shoulder, Pete scrapes his teeth over the round of Patrick’s ass and smooths over the marks with his tongue until Patrick rolls his eyes for the ceiling and begs for more. 

“Too much?” Pete asks, voice wrecked, and Patrick’s face twitches.

“Yeah, but—” Patrick starts, and Pete presses his thumb to Patrick’s hole, just touching, at the same time he sinks his mouth over the head of Patrick’s leaking cock, and Patrick grinds his ass against the sheets and makes a keening noise before he comes. Pete presses him against the mattress with the heels of his hands on each of Patrick’s hips while he comes, and grinds himself against the mess of pre-come and sweat over Patrick’s stomach. 

“Pete,” Patrick gasps moments later, and that’s it— Pete comes with his hands on Patrick’s hips and his name on Patrick’s lips, and it’s faultless. 

“I got an interview for the job,” Patrick tells him, breathless, euphoric in his afterglow. 

“That’s incredible,” Pete tells him and kisses him deep and dirty. “You’re fucking incredible.”

Patrick wraps his forearms around Pete’s neck and pushes his nose to Pete’s and just feels _good_ for the first time since July. It doesn’t last as long as he hopes. 

_October, Year II_

A lot can change in a year. A frigid and snowy winter melts into a bleak spring, and then a feverish summer, but with the onslaught of October comes a cold that ushers in a discomfort neither of them can explain. One year of honeymooning behind closed doors, one year of keeping secrets from family and friends and divulging secrets to each other like they’re locked and keyed, but without the dreamlike blanket of the summer heat, everything is clearer and sharper. The days are shorter and the magazine deposits work onto Patrick like he’s more than one person, and a second October leaves Patrick feeling guilty.

Not guilty in the _it’d be best if we didn’t_ way, but in the consuming way that sits in the back of his head like bad news and makes food tasteless. Patrick pours the rest of his breakfast cereal, now mostly mush, down the kitchen sink and flips the switch to the garbage disposal. It makes a hell of a noise, drowns out his thoughts, and Patrick is secretly glad for the piles of prints still littering his desk that await him in the office. 

The work day is a dreary shuffle of co-ops in and out of his office and answering emails before the weekend, and before leaving for the night, Patrick clicks through his calendar and frowns. 

“You need less _stuff,”_ Hayley had told him the previous evening, still at work, his phone on speaker on the desk. “Prioritize, pick what really can’t wait, and fuck the rest.” 

Surrounded by red ink and impending deadlines, Patrick had been forced to admit that she was right and now, in a similar situation, Patrick stares at his vibrating phone, exhausted, and decides that the conversation brewing on the phone can’t wait.

“How is interview prep?” Pete asks. 

Patrick looks over the files on his desk and starts, “I haven’t—” He frowns, thinks for a moment, and begins again, “It's going really well, which makes me— can we do dinner tonight and talk?” 

“Sure,” Pete answers plainly. “Pizza or Thai?”

Patrick wallows in Pete’s overtly simple answer for a moment, and then just because he doesn’t feel like acceding to anyone tonight, answers, “Thai. I’ll pick it up.” 

Patrick drops his laptop and changes clothes off at home and calls in the takeout order. The ride to Pete’s apartment is unusually quiet for a Friday night, and Patrick steps off the T and into the small restaurant and tries to will away the feeling that he’s doing something he shouldn’t. It’s just intuition, a teasing feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he can’t shake it, even on Pete’s doorstep and even when Pete pulls him through the doorframe and kisses his temple. 

He’s abnormally quiet throughout dinner, thinking, and Pete throws him worried glances out of the corner of his eye. Patrick swallows around his fork, feeling guilty still, and sitting on opposite ends of Pete’s couch, legs tangled in the center, Pete asks him what’s wrong for the fourth time in an hour, and Patrick cracks. 

“With the interview and stuff, I was just thinking— I think we should take a break for a while. Like just be friends, you know?”

Patrick feels the inklings of regret creeping in as soon as the words leave his mouth. Pete stares at him, understandably silent and looking a bit like he’s been kicked in the stomach, and Patrick resists the urge to take it back, even if it’s just to break the silence.

“That’s fine,” Pete says finally, though it doesn’t sound fine. “We said if it wasn’t fun we’d call it off, so—” 

“It’s not that I’m not having fun,” Patrick explains hurriedly. “And I really don’t want to call it off, but it’s just not fair. I’m just— I don’t want to commit to anything right now, and we rarely have time to see each other anyway.”

“It’s not really a commitment,” Pete says, harder this time, and like he’s convincing himself as much as he is Patrick. 

“I know, but I feel like I’m leading you on.” 

“Patrick, it’s fine,” Pete insists, and just like that, Patrick feels tired to his bones. 

Around the lump in his throat, Patrick tells him, “I think I just need things to be as simple as possible right now.”

For only an instant, Pete looks like he’s going to argue. Mouth drawn into a tight line turned down on the ends, he momentarily feels resentful. Patrick stares at him with soft eyes and an otherwise unreadable expression, and Pete sighs and mutters again, “I said it was fine.” 

Patrick leaves shortly after with an excuse that he needs to work on something before the weekend starts. Pete brushes the hair from Patrick’s forehead when they part ways in the doorway, and Patrick bites the inside of his lip and misses his goodbye kiss and a promise of sooner rather than later. 

“We can plan something soon,” Patrick tells him, and Pete nods, too quickly.

Between the stress of the upcoming interview and the awkward conversation with Pete, Patrick feels a bizarre sense of pride for making it through the threshold of his own apartment before he bursts into tears. From the couch, Sonkie startles and runs under the bed. 

♥

Gabe’s birthday approaches at record speed, crushed between a lawsuit against the city housing authority and corporate credit card fraud, and Pete stumbles out of sleep Columbus Day weekend to find that he’s slept through most of the morning and that his phone is vibrating violently. He feels nauseous the moment he’s vertical and Pete scrubs crust from the corners of his eyes and his voice cracks when he mumbles, “Hey, um—” He stifles the nickname and continues, “Patrick, what’s up?”

“Are we still going to get stuff for Gabe’s party? Are you okay?” Patrick asks, and Pete can’t help but notice that his voice sounds equally tired, though fully awake, on the other end of the phone. 

“I just woke up,” Pete tells him. He sounds exactly how he feels, and Pete pulls his bedsheets to his shoulders and shivers, tries to blink away his headache. 

“Are you sick?” A door slams in the background and Patrick shakes his head and says, “I’ll just go out myself. Can you send me the list? Do you need me to bring you anything?” 

Pete heaves an uncomfortable laugh and answers all of Patrick’s questions at once. “Yeah.” 

“I can bring you whatever is leftover from the party,” Patrick tells him. “And I’ll try to remember who’s fucking who.” 

“Yeah, thanks,” Pete replies, and flops back into the bedsheets to sleep away the rest of the day. 

Pete opens the door later that evening expecting Patrick to be on the other side, but instead, Gabe presents a Tupperware container of pasta salad, half a six-pack, and what’s left of a box of Sprite. Pete blinks against the yellow street light and the cold evening, and Gabe quips, “If you don’t come to the party, the party comes to you.” 

“Oh, thank God,” Pete exhales.

“From Erin,” Gabe informs him, and hands him the container. “Do I have to sign a waiver before I come in?” 

Pete shakes his head and Gabe follows him into the kitchen. Pete opens the silverware drawer and says, “Shit, I’m not that sick, I’m just _tired._ We haven’t gone out in forever, and Patrick and I are, um— friends, so I’m just working.”

“We’ve got to go out soon,” Gabe tells him, and Pete stabs at his dinner and nods. “Other than work, what are you doing?”

Pete thinks for a moment and realizes he hasn’t done anything outside of work in two weeks. “I’m too tired to cook but that’s— that’s work. Don’t feel like writing much.” 

Gabe gives him a sympathetic look. “And the Patrick thing?” 

“I don’t know. I get it, I told him it was fine.” 

“And is it fine?” 

“Uh— no,” Pete admits eventually, “But it’s not really my decision, is it?”

♥

By late October, the wind is howling through the narrow streets of the city, and Patrick slips through Pete’s fingers while he isn’t looking. It rains every Tuesday, and Pete misses his warmth violently, Patrick’s laptop on his coffee table, and Patrick’s naked body draped across his chest in bed. They’re all thoughts he shoves to the back of his mind, and despite Pete’s best efforts, Patrick is hard to reach in more ways than one.

It’s not intentional. Patrick desperately tries to keep up with him via text, and they do, back and forth throughout the day, like friends. It doesn’t replace Pete pressed against him on the couch or in bed, though, or Pete’s hands wrapped gently around Patrick’s wrist or the back of his neck, and being friends is a muscle Patrick isn’t used to using. It’s easier, Patrick thinks, to sweat it out now as opposed to rather than tease himself and be miserable later.

“Gabe and I are going to go out for Halloween. You should come,” Pete tells him on the phone. 

Tuesday morning brings wind and rain, and Patrick approaches the office building huddled within his coat, hot coffee in one hand and his phone clasped tightly in the other. The man in front of him doesn’t hold the door open, and Patrick does an awkward jog across the sidewalk to catch it before it closes completely. 

“I can’t.” He catches the door with his toe against the wind and struggles against it for a moment. “I’m going out with Hayley,” he says, voice strained. 

“Hayley?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick snaps. It comes out more dissenting than he intends. “We’ve been hanging out a lot more— with work and stuff.” 

“Oh,” Pete says. “Okay.” 

The door hits Patrick’s elbow as it swings closed behind him and soaks his sock and the hem of his pants with coffee. _“Shit,”_ Patrick whispers, with emphasis. “Look, I have to go, I’ll call you later.”

Patrick spends the afternoon doing interview prep and forgets. By the time he’s done with his outline, he figures it’s too late to call.

♥

The interview goes well— really well. Patrick audibly closes the door of his office and drops the piles of prints on his desk to the floor before the call and feels better for it. Victoria calls him at exactly ten, and Patrick walks her through his resume and his current projects, and they spend the next hour talking co-ops, the tiny Boston music scene, and his college band.

“Listen,” Victoria tells him at the end of the call. “I’m making no promises but I’m optimistic. Give me a bit and I’ll get back to you.” 

Patrick thanks her profusely and leaves the office in an adrenaline-induced daze. He stuffs his laptop and his umbrella in his backpack and calls Hayley from the elevator. The phone doesn’t ring until he’s left the building, and he has to leave a voicemail. 

“Hayley, I think I’d sell my soul for this job,” Patrick tells her. He sidesteps a puddle on the street and laughs. “Like I think I’m gonna start unconsciously sabotaging my life right now, so— call me back.

_November, Year II_

Pete stands at his kitchen counter in sweatpants and shirtless and stares at the blinding white of his laptop screen in the dark. It’s quiet in the kitchen, save the occasional clicking of the heater and Pete’s own sighs, and Pete glances at the digital clock over the stove and slams the lid of his laptop closed. He’d slept for an hour, maybe, between eleven and midnight and had woken with the insuppressible urge to write something down, and had spent the last hour typing sporadically before reaching the bleak realization that regardless of how he twists the story, the characters don’t fit together. Two people destined to be together via Pete’s own power of thought exist in separate spheres and forcing them together requires mind games and massive leaps of faith. There’s too much distance, or no motivation, or a significant difference in opinions painted to look trivial, and Pete scrubs a hair through his hair and thinks with some disappointment that sleep is likely lost on him. 

Whether Patrick is awake or not is a complete gamble. It is equally likely that he is dead to the world or fully awake and currently pursuing some creative endeavor, and Pete weighs the options only momentarily before he flips his phone over on the counter. 

“Hey,” Patrick answers. “Are you alright?”

He doesn’t sound startled awake, and Pete inhales and blurts out, “What if they don’t end up together? I know that they’re meant to be together, but— it’s just not working.” 

Patrick is silent for a moment and then asks, voice slightly strained, “Who?”

“The book characters, but I’m thinking, what do you think of the supernatural?”

Patrick sighs, audible through the receiver, and asks, “What do you mean?” 

“Okay, you’ll get it in a second,” Pete starts. The heat clicks, and Pete takes in the suffocating quiet of his apartment and feels better for the company on the phone. “You know when they’re in the hotel café in the city and they find out that they both lived in New Berlin when they were kids because Aaron tells her about how his father worked in the factory that later makes Chobani yogurt?” 

Patrick answers with some confidence, “Yes.”

“And then Luca goes home to see her parents after her father thinks he has pneumonia and she thinks there’s a picture of Aaron on the wall behind the counter at New York Pizzeria?”

“Yeah,” Patrick replies. “It’s not him or someone in his family— it’s someone else, but she pretends it’s a sign anyway. That part doesn’t make sense because Aaron’s family only lived there for a short time, but Luca grew up there.”

Pete smiles, if only to himself, because of course Patrick thinks that Luca seeing his face is pure coincidence. He decides not to make a point of it and instead asks, “Have you ever tried past life hypnosis?” 

“Don’t you think the soulmate thing is romantic enough?” Patrick argues. He takes a sip from his tea on the side table, smiles around the edge of the mug, and continues, “And by romantic I mean tacky and impractical.” He’s sure that the smile bleeds into his voice, and Pete laughs softly. 

Pete grins and inhales. “Can I come over?” he asks. 

_Self-loathing poet, resident Laurel Canyon, know-it-all,_

_You talk to the walls when the party gets bored of you._

_—_ Norman fucking Rockwell

Pete shows up at the door of Patrick’s apartment a half-hour later with his laptop and a notebook clutched to his chest. Pete gives him a sideways grin in the doorframe, all sweatpants and the kind of bedhead that only comes from sleeping with damp hair, and Patrick swallows the hard feeling that he’s supposed to kiss him and instead asks, “Do you want a glass of wine or something? Coffee?” 

Pete pulls his shoes off just inside the door and says, still grinning, “No, I just need your undivided attention for the next hour.” 

Thrown across the couch with his laptop, notebook, and pens strewn over Patrick’s stained coffee table, Pete recites a number of conjectures about past life regression and evidence for the soul, and explains to Patrick the Orch-OR theory to the best of his ability. 

“What’s this have to do with the book?” Patrick finally asks. Sitting on the living room carpet, his third tea of the night between his knees, Patrick scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand and blinks at Pete with tired eyes. 

“Oh,” Pete replies easily. “It can all be used as evidence for soulmates.” 

Patrick shakes his head. “I’m going to go shower. I’ll try to think of something for you while I’m in there.” 

The noise of the shower is inaudible, and with Patrick absent, Pete is again consumed by the silence of an apartment in the early morning. The street below Patrick’s apartment is unoccupied at this hour, and Pete glances around the space and feels that although the quiet is the same, his kitchen had been far more eerie. It is hardly the first time Pete has been in Patrick’s living room, but the first time he’s been there alone, and Pete takes in the piles of magazine prints and the streetlight outside the window with a reserved fondness before he taps on the trackpad of his laptop and brings the machine back to life. By the time Patrick emerges from the hallway, Pete is fully immersed in his own thoughts. 

“I didn’t come up with anything,” Patrick tells him. He drags his eyes up Pete’s reclining body and thinks before he can stop himself that he wouldn’t mind it as permanent decor. “I still think the supernatural phenomenon is a sort of a cop-out.” 

Pete looks up from his notebook at Patrick’s tousled hair. “I hate to admit I agree with you.” He clicks his tongue before saying, “Actually, I think I’ll take you up on that glass of wine. I’m done with this for tonight.” 

“One glass and I’m kicking you out and going to bed,” Patrick tells him from the kitchen. Pete laughs in the other room, and Patrick grins in return and yells, “I’m serious!” 

One glass of wine goes down easily after midnight, and shortly after, Pete sighs and announces, “Okay, I’m going home.” 

Patrick blinks and finds that he’s been asleep, curled into the arm of the couch opposite Pete’s outstretched legs. The wave of exhaustion had hit him the second he had turned off the tap, and in a sleepy stupor, Patrick thinks his ideal night ends surrounded by Pete on his worn couch, fleece blanket thrown over both of them, and completely comatose. Pete pulls himself up from the couch, and Patrick reaches for him without thinking. 

“Wait,” Patrick says, and sets the glass to the side table, and Pete holds his face in one hand and kisses him. 

With Pete’s mouth pressed to his and Pete’s hand on his thigh, Patrick realizes with equal heartache and pride that maybe Pete had been more unsettled than he had let on by their awkward conversation, and that being _just friends_ is more than just speaking it out loud. Hayley had said space, not just a reconfirming of the boundaries currently being stepped on, and Patrick inhales the scent of Pete’s fading aftershave over the usual lived-in smell of his apartment and thinks that if nothing else happens, he’s making progress.

Pete’s upper lip tastes of red wine, and Patrick lingers for a moment and lets the taste sink into his tongue before he pulls away. 

Pete says, “That’s a ‘we’re just friends’ kiss.” 


	8. In which Pete is In Love.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Someone once told me that explaining is an admission of failure. I'm sure you remember, I was on the phone with you, sweetheart."_ — Richard Siken

_December, Year II_

In need of a vacation, Pete takes the time off work and goes home to see his family for Christmas. He takes the week off and spends the weekend recuperating from the emotional upheaval of the past year with a pen and a Hulu subscription and flies out to Chicago on Monday. The suburbs seem bigger and more isolating every time he’s there, but he’s happy to be anywhere but Boston, even if it means enduring the endless invasive questions from his extended family and fielding his mother’s concerned looks. 

In his mother’s sprawling kitchen and minutes before dinner, he holds a homemade wine spritzer in his fingers and coughs up most of it when his aunt turns to him from the stove and says, “Your sister said you were going to bring a girl home for Christmas— what happened to that?”

It’s a targeted question, the implication dripping with disapproval, and Pete wonders with contempt how long it had taken her to come up with any method of asking deemed acceptable in the social circle. Pete remembers saying nothing of the sort to his sister, and the notion that Anna has spoken to their aunt since moving overseas is ridiculous. He chokes on a number of excuses and thinks he deserves an award for the embarrassment he endures when his cousin slaps him between the shoulder blades, just this side of too hard, and announces, “No women, he’s a career man!” 

Pete makes a face and nods, half-laughing and half-coughing from being hit, and his mother gives him a sympathetic look. 

“I have a lot going on,” Pete explains. “I don’t get a lot of free time.” 

It seems to satisfy her for the time being anyway, and she gives him a quick smile. Pete makes a fast exit to the other room.

“You can tell her not to ask you things like that,” his mother tells him later. Most of her guests have gone home, but she keeps her voice low, drowned out by conversation in the living room. 

Pete stirs his mug of coffee with a fork, the only clean silverware available, and notes, “If she didn’t, you would.” 

“I just don’t want you to be _lonely_ ,” his mother insists. 

“Mama, I’m not _lonely,_ ” Pete insists, but it lacks the edge it did the last time she asked. 

♥

Patrick spends most of the month of December tucked indoors, typing up semester performance reports for the co-ops, and writing reviews he missed during prime season. The rest of his time is spent on the phone between Victoria and Joe. He sends them samples and edits and they introduce him to Nate, collaborator and photographer extraordinaire. Victoria calls him ‘flexible’ and ‘naturally blasè,’ and when they finally talk, Nate is funny and agreeable. Patrick likes him enough, and altogether, the move starts to seem a little more tangible and much more palatable as Patrick slides his cards in place. As Hayley says, the Universe deals him a tricky hand, but learning to play the cards he’s dealt is a good distraction from the pockmark on the surface of his heart. It hurts less if he learns not to poke at it.

_January, Year III_

Regardless, Hayley eventually gets tired of his misery. The weekend after New Year’s is a stale cold, and Patrick rubs his dry hands together and waits for Hayley to finish with her hair. 

Hayley leans over her bathroom sink and yells over the sound of her hairdryer, “Hey, I forgot to tell you but there’s a girl coming tonight that you need to meet. She’s really sweet.” 

Patrick makes a noncommittal noise and Hayley frowns and continues, “You should just talk to her and see what happens, for me. Please?” 

Hayley’s friend is pretty, in a mousy, childish way, and Patrick agrees to buy her a drink. They make small talk at the bar for most of the night; she likes the right bands and hates Instagram and she’s shorter than Patrick, and eventually, she gives him a small smile and says, “Look, I should be upfront— I just broke up with my boyfriend of three years. It’s okay if you want this to just be a one-time thing. I’m not really looking to date.” 

Patrick is silent for a beat too long, and she touches Patrick’s knee and asks, “Do you want another drink?” 

“Excuse me,” Patrick says softly and slides off the barstool. He’s acutely aware of Hayley watching him leave from across the room and Patrick shoves open the club door with trembling arms and doesn’t look back until he locates the nearest CVS. He buys a pack of cigarettes and a diet soda and can’t manage to stifle the eye roll when the cashier asks to see his ID. He smokes two walking back and stands on the sidewalk just outside the door, studying his shoes and feeling a little less neurotic with every passing second. 

“Where’d you go?” Hayley asks. She lets the door fall closed behind her and crosses her arms, her light coat wrapped over her chest. “I thought you ditched. I don’t want to leave yet. I want to talk to the sound guy after.” 

“Just to get a cigarette,” Patrick replies lightly. “Do you want one?” 

“I hate that you just—” Hayley starts. She glances at Patrick’s outstretched hand and makes a considering face. “Yeah, give me one.” 

They stand in silence for a few minutes. Hayley shivers against the cold and Patrick wants to tell her to go back inside, but the words die on his tongue. He’s happy for the company. A number of people exit through the door but show them no recognition, and it’s for the better because Patrick wipes at his face with the back of his hands and sniffs, and Hayley asks, “Hey, are you alright?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes, and laughs. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

“Did she say something to you?” 

Patrick laughs again and shakes his head. “No, you’re right. She’s really sweet. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Hayley crosses one ankle over the other and stares at him and Patrick fingers his cigarette and sniffs.

“We can go,” she says and touches his arm lightly. “It’s not that important. Want to go eat?” 

The nearest pub to the venue is small and dimly lit. There’s no sign but there is a design of a goat above the doorway and a sandwich board on the sidewalk reading, _Open Late. Food and Cocktails._ Hayley follows him inside, and sat in a dark corner, she takes a menu from a tall and attractive server and opens it across the small table. She glances over the menu, then says, “Okay, spill it. Work sucks right now, you’re worried we hired the wrong co-ops, you love to make yourself miserable, you broke up with your boyfriend. Which is it?”

Patrick fingers his plastic menu and rolls his soggy eyes before he sighs and mutters, “We never dated.” 

“Irrelevant,” Hayley says quickly. 

“I know it’s— silly,” Patrick tries. “But that makes it worse. I know it’s for the best but it feels worse, I guess.” Hayley stares at him for a long moment, and Patrick eventually comes out with, “This is Greta all over again.” 

Hayley laughs at this. “This is nothing like Greta. You and Greta broke up because you outgrew each other. You were never going to take that relationship any further because that was your _college girlfriend_ and not your fucking life partner. That part of your life is over— you have different priorities now.” She gives Patrick a scrutinizing glance and when he doesn’t reply, she takes a long breath and continues, “Just because you ended a relationship doesn’t mean it ‘failed.’ You learn something from everyone you meet.” 

Hayley goes back to studying her menu. Patrick frowns and argues, “That makes people seem expendable.”

She shrugs. “That doesn’t mean you didn’t make the right choice.” 

Patrick sometimes thinks he lacks a moral compass, not because he willingly makes decisions that wreak havoc on those around him, but because he fails at weighting his own cravings against the appetite of others. His moral compass is more like a TriField meter, violently swinging from zero to one-hundred and returning faulty data.  “How do you know you made the right choice?” Patrick asks carefully. 

“I don’t know. You just have to know. It’s like being in love.” 

Patrick hums as he takes it in and decides aloud, “I’ve never been in love.” He stares out the window and tries not to look too wistful when he admits moments later, “I’m never going to tell him no.” The soda bottle crumples in his hands, and Hayley gives him a tired look across the table. 

♥

Gabe sends them both home from Lir the next weekend in the cold with the passing remark, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t,” and that is how Patrick ends up on the kitchen floor of Pete’s apartment, giddy and giggly and unbelievably drunk. He digs into a coffee mug filled with dry Honey Nut Cheerios with a plastic spoon and abruptly realizes that he’s laughing, the kind of untethered laughter that rarely comes without a stimulant, the kind that hurts the next day. His sneakers reek of alcohol ground into the concrete floor of the club and the hem of his pants is wet with a mystery fluid he will find later and wrinkle his nose at, but for now, he’s laughing. Pete slides to the floor with his back to the cabinets and reaches for the mug in Patrick’s hands and Patrick tips it to him, sending cereal scattering over the tiles. 

“I have to tell you,” Pete says, slurred though alcohol and exhaustion from the past week. “On New Year’s, I went out with this guy, an’ it kind of sucked.” 

Patrick stills and sniffs, head swimming. He’s drunk, but not drunk enough to miss the obvious point of this anecdote— college hookup diehard resumes the habit after mercurial breakup. The difference, Patrick thinks, between this and the standard college hookup is that the post-coital brag to friends doesn’t usually involve telling the ex, but this is what being friends is and Patrick is left with an uncomfortable pang of jealousy and a competitive urge. He doesn’t want to know, but he grabs at cereal with clumsy hands and asks, “Did you do anything?"

“We went to this bar in Back Bay, but— no,” Pete says and slides down the cabinets until he’s sprawled across the floor. He loops both hands over his head and mumbles, “It fucking sucked so bad,” and then Patrick is laughing again, until there are tears in his eyelashes and his ribs hurt, until Pete abandons the sulky demeanor and cackles.

“Hey,” Patrick remarks in the consequent quiet. The stillness is warm, silent except for Patrick’s drunken chewing. “We’re like really friends again.” 

Pete reaches over to brush his thumbs over Patrick’s cheekbones and grins. 

_February, Year III_

February is heartache month. Days after Valentine’s Day, Gabe tells Pete in passing that he’s spending the weekend with Erin, thus, the weekend is free and Pete is alone. _wine and dinner?_ he texts Patrick on Thursday. When Patrick doesn’t respond, Pete writes, _Just to catch up?_

Patrick isn’t sure why he agrees. He blames it on being horny and stressed and then considers that Pete probably just means dinner. He wears fitted jeans and his expensive wool coat and it doesn’t matter because Pete’s hands are on his face and Pete’s tongue is in his mouth seconds after he opens the door. 

Pete jerks him off naked and splayed across Pete’s blue patterned bed sheets. It’s slow and just this side of too much, and Patrick clings to him, forearms wrapped around Pete’s neck as he pulls him closer. 

“You can’t just show up on my doorstep looking like that,” Pete teases. His face is in Patrick’s neck, his hand wrapped around Patrick’s thick cock.

“I got an invite,” Patrick stutters out. Pete’s mouth is sweltering to the skin of Patrick’s neck and he makes a soft breathy noise when he briefly thinks of Pete’s mouth around his cock. 

“Oh, yeah.” 

Pete’s hands burn like they’re too warm on Patrick’s skin. Patrick tangles his fingers of one hand in Pete’s hair and thumbs over Pete’s dick with the other and tries to quiet the shut off the logical part of his mind and enjoy this. Instead, he feels stunted and a little rebellious and Patrick shoves the back of his hand in between his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut when he comes. He’s uncomfortably aware of Pete’s watchful eyes, mouth slightly agape, and Patrick pulls Pete’s face to his chest and blinks, emotionless, at the ceiling when Pete comes a minute later. Patrick smooths a hand down his back, skin hot under his palm, and Pete makes a soft noise. 

In the seconds following, Patrick pulls the duvet over them, bathes in the warmth of their bodies, and tries to forget that he’ll leave as soon as Pete decides to get up. 

“You seem tense,” Pete notes. 

Patrick presses his face to the top of Pete’s head and sighs before he stretches and says, “Severely lacking in self-preservation.” He feels exhausted, as if he’s been awake for days, but Pete’s body is solid and sticky against his bare chest, suffocating in the best way. Pete makes a scoffing noise and rolls to the other side of the bed to sit up. 

“Consider it stress relief,” Pete snaps. He pulls on a sweatshirt and underwear with an abrupt standoffishness and closes the bathroom door halfway, and Patrick takes a moment to register that he’s offended. 

Patrick sighs audibly and rolls to his chest. Propped up on his elbows and checking messages on his phone, Patrick notes drily, “You’re acting normal.” 

“Sorry, I’ll try to act more normal,” Pete bites from in front of the bathroom sink, watching himself in the mirror. 

Patrick flips his phone over in the sheets and scrubs at his eyes with his hands. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“No,” Pete tells him shakily. “Just— I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

Patrick sweeps his sweater off of Pete’s bedroom floor in a display of tepid indignation, and not a week later, Pete finds himself wrapped in Patrick’s bedsheets, duvet and fleece blankets shoved to the floor. 

Pete thinks that at the source of many of his problems in his life is his inability to quit when it’s good. An unstable habit of self-discipline and an egotistical streak had gotten him through undergraduate and a law degree and are a secret weapon in his professional life, but are only an obstacle in his personal life.

Gabe tells him constantly, “You need to just leave it alone,” but Pete picks at it until it bleeds.

Patrick kisses his neck, the tattoo below his collar, and says softly, “I thought we weren’t going to do this anymore."

“Yeah,” Pete says. Patrick’s come is drying on the inside of his thigh. 

“It’s not that serious.” 

“Okay,” Pete replies. He kisses him and gropes at Patrick’s ass. 

Patrick’s tongue traces the inside of Pete’s lip. Patrick has lied to himself before; he can do it again. 

He’s late for work, and Hayley takes one look at his bedhead and wrinkled shirt and says, with emphasis, “You like him. You really like him.”

Patrick feels obsessive. “I hate him. I don’t want to talk about it.” 

Don’t you know nothing good happens in February?

_March, Year III_

It stays cold for the beginning of March. Spring is scheduled to arrive as usual, but the weather hasn’t seemed to take the hint. A cold dampness hangs over the skyline, but the residents of Boston seem brightened by impending warmer weather. The weather is unpredictable but the changing of the seasons is certain— the mood of the metropolis is decided by the proximity to the twenty-first of the month. The mood of select individuals is unfortunately decided by systems much more complex. 

Patrick arrives at Pete’s apartment minutes after seven, having carried a paper Whole Foods bag through the evening drizzle and a wet and stuffy ride on the Green line, pressed between a small woman with an oversized suitcase and a child with two basketballs on their way home from practice after school. The paper bag is soft and damp, along with the front of his jeans, and the wetness of the city street is slowly penetrating his shoes. The drizzle hasn’t let up for days, making Patrick’s regular commute miserable, and Patrick exhales the stresses of the week on Pete’s doorstep. He reaches for the doorbell at the same time that Pete flings open the door. 

“You’re soaking wet,” Pete says, taking the grocery bag from Patrick, and Patrick gives him the sweetest smile he can manage with water dripping off the lenses of his glasses and down the back of his neck. It isn’t much.

They eat dinner in relative silence, mentally sizing each other up across the counter, and on the couch after dinner, Pete watches Patrick pick lint off the front of his jeans and snaps. 

“Can we just admit that being friends is not working?” Pete says suddenly. It comes out shrilly, and Pete resists the urge to clap one hand over his mouth. He tosses the television remote to the coffee table and scrubs at one eye with the heel of his hand. “We don’t have to like, _do anything_ about it, but maybe we should start with that, and I don’t want to start anything, but clearly—”

“You’re miserable,” Patrick tells him noncommittally and immediately opens his mouth to take it back. He feels his face flush, hot like the space heater in the hallway, and Pete laughs. “I don’t mean like that!”

“No, that’s— are you happy with this?” Patrick frowns and Pete says, “You’re miserable, too. Just admit it fucking sucks.” 

Patrick is silent for a moment, teeth to the inside of his cheek, because it’s one thing to lie awake at half-past three and deliberate the failures of his life and another to vocalize them. He snaps, “And then what?” 

“What?” Pete laughs uncomfortably and scratches at the back of his neck.

“What happens after I admit we can’t be friends?” Patrick asks blankly. 

“What, like you want options?” Pete replies. “Do you want to, like, see other people? I told you, I went out with someone and I’m not just not interested in— ” 

Again Pete considers that he could get out of most of his worst decisions if he knew how to quit while ahead, but instead he excels at making a mess and even better at beating a dead argument. He clears his throat and tries again. “I’m not even really convinced you’d be friends with me if you had someone else to fuck around with.” 

Patrick doesn’t know how to admit, _actually, I don’t want anyone else_ without sounding vastly hypocritical, so instead, he swallows the sentiment and gives a partial shrug. “Then here are your options— we aren’t friends at all or we call this something else.” 

“Both those options suck,” Pete retorts. “Third option— do nothing and see what happens. Fourth option— I can like actually take you out on a date. What’s it going to take for you to say fuck being friends?” 

“I want to, but what happens when I leave and we’re over and then it just looks like I fucking left you here? Thanks for the blowjobs— fuck you and fuck Boston. ” 

This is the heart of the issue, and Pete takes an audible inhale and asks, “Who says we’re over when you leave?” 

Patrick wipes at his face with the end of his sleeve. He blurts out, “I don’t want a long-distance relationship. Are you moving to Italy? Don’t you see that you’re just postponing it? It doesn’t matter when we decide to end it, you’re still going to be just as angry with me. Do you get that?” 

“I’m not angry with you,” Pete insists and Patrick gives him a look of complete disbelief. “Why do you want to spend your last months here miserable? Is it because you think it makes things easier in the end because if it is, that’s— I’m sorry, but that’s just—stupid, Gorgeous. That’s stupid.” 

The nickname is a stupid slip-up, and not worth being upset about it, but Patrick feels himself turn cold. It feels apathetic, a careless choice of words, and Patrick snaps, “You will be.” 

“Then let me deal with it when it happens. Patrick, please— let’s just keep things open, how they are, and see what happens.” 

Like most things Pete asks of him, Patrick doesn’t know why he agrees. A touchy, stilted argument and rearranging boundaries, and Patrick looks up at him from the couch and thinks, _I just don’t want you to fall in love with me._

♥

The first day of spring falls on a Friday. Things are delicate between them, fragile like the young flowers in apartment boxes or along the sidewalks, and Patrick crosses his fingers and his toes inside his shoes and hopes for the best. It’s raining, again, and Pete shuts them in from the outside world closing the front door of the apartment and envelops Patrick in a wordless embrace. 

Patrick smokes until he’s too high to think, hyperaware of Pete’s hardwood floor pressed into his scapulas and his spine, drowning in weed and existing in the same space as Pete. Pete lays his hands on his stomach, his chest, and Patrick soaks in the warmth and for the time being, forgets that he’s controlled by time and a victim to his own actions.

He had planned to go home, but Pete offers him a hoodie and sweatpants and a hot shower and it’s late by the time Pete flips the lights and pulls him to the mattress. Pete might kiss him, or he might not, because Patrick is asleep the moment his face touches the pillow from the white noise of Pete’s air conditioner and the soft whisper of the sheets.

As expected, it’s still raining by morning. The cold drizzle outside had been predicted to last the weekend and seems to be doing just that. In contrast with the sidewalks outside, Pete’s bedroom is warmer than it had felt the previous night. Pete sleeps naked, fitted into the curve of Patrick’s back, but he’s awake now and absentmindedly pets Patrick’s bedhead and waits patiently for him to stir. Patrick awakens eventually, his fingers and toes curling in the bedsheets, and huffs. Pete pushes his nose to the back of Patrick’s skull and breathes in the scent of his own shampoo in Patrick’s hair. 

“Good morning,” Pete whispers, and presses his mouth to the corner of Patrick’s mouth. It’s warm under the covers. Pete’s morning wood presses into the back of Patrick’s thigh.

“It’s too fucking early,” Patrick whispers back, sleep-drunk. Pete smooths a hand over Patrick’s ass, still in Pete’s sweatpants, and Patrick hums warmly and says sleepily, “Keep touching me.” 

“Yeah?” Pete laughs, and Patrick presses into his hand. An ill-defined promise of sex holds them both more alert, or awake at least. Patrick rolls over, softly rustling in the sheets, and presses his mouth to Pete’s and waits. They’re just touching, buzzing with anticipation, and it’s a stupid game, waiting for Pete to take initiative when Patrick wants it just as much, but they both know Patrick gets off on it. Pete kisses him deliberately, and Patrick hums in appreciation and presses his half-hard dick against Pete’s thigh. 

Patrick’s mouth tastes like morning breath and maybe toothpaste from the night before on Pete’s tongue, and Pete’s hands are in his waistband, fingers pressing into the dimples of his lower back and dipping lower. Patrick rolls his body against Pete’s thigh, feels Pete sigh against him. 

“Can we take these off?” Pete growls against his mouth, fingering the soft fabric of his sweatpants and Patrick looks between Pete’s mouth and sleepy eyes and nods. 

Taking off Patrick’s sweats is a two-person job pressed together in bed. Pete pulls at the waistband, knuckles scraping the round of Patrick’s ass while Patrick arches against him. The fabric slides easily down the length of Patrick’s cock, and he makes a small noise high in his throat and feels Pete’s cock twitch appreciatively. 

Patrick’s tiny body wrapped in Pete’s pullover is a sight Pete cannot imagine ever getting tired of. Pete brushes his thumbs over Patrick’s nipples, hands sweating against Patrick’s ribs, and listens to Patrick’s soft inhale against his mouth. Everything feels sleepy, Patrick’s warm thighs fit to his under the sheets, the slick sound of Patrick’s mouth against his own lower lip that sends a creeping feeling across Pete’s shoulders. _It’s good_ , Pete thinks to himself, and then Patrick’s fingers wrap around Pete’s sharp hips as he brushes their cocks together and things get that much better. 

Pete takes him in, Pete’s dark sweatshirt on pale skin and Patrick’s disheveled hair, the pink of his mouth perfectly matched to the pink of his cock. He watches Patrick’s eyes on his chest and stifles a grin, shakes his head, and breathes through a laugh. It makes him feel simultaneously warm and cold, curling in the pit of his stomach and spreading beneath his ribs, and Pete suddenly knows with an undying certainty that he is in love. He briefly considers his previous failed relationships and how he had felt the previous summer and knows that what he had felt then is nothing compared to what he feels now. It’s barely a feeling, but the naked truth, and Pete studies the features of Patrick’s face for a moment and reminds himself that Patrick has his own consciousness, his own perceptions, his own life and memories. The thought leaves him dumbfounded, and Patrick meets his gaze, wide-eyed, and asks “What?” 

“Nothing,” Pete replies, and laughs again. “It’s nothing, I’m good.” 

Patrick’s fingertips playfully explore the skin of Pete’s hips, the backs of his thighs, the soft hair below his navel. Patrick seems content to just explore, with Pete’s hands under the sweatshirt and Pete’s mouth across his face, and Pete lets him touch until he’s desperate for more, panting softly next to Patrick’s ear. 

“Hey,” Pete mumbles, asking, and Patrick kisses his mouth. Everything is soft, Patrick’s hands, Patrick’s body under his, Patrick’s lips against his own, and Pete craves more, wants to be picked apart with Patrick’s hands between his dick and his chest. They can do this softly. 

Patrick’s fingers creep over Pete’s side body, barely touching, until he’s fisting his hand loosely around Pete’s cock. Pete whines and rocks into his hand, and Patrick breathes him in and swallows Pete’s soft groans when Patrick tightens his fingers, pulls on Pete’s cock like he means it. 

“I like you like this,” Patrick says, teasing, and Pete laughs, warmly. Patrick’s eyes tell a different story; Patrick takes him in, pupils blown. His gaze slips over Pete’s lower back, over the swell of Pete’s ass, bare to the room, and then back to Pete’s open mouth. It’s a little vulnerable, much too early, and when Pete kisses him, Patrick’s eyes flutter closed. Patrick runs his thumb over the head of his cock and Pete shudders against him, bites lightly at Patrick’s mouth. 

“Oh, fuck, Gorgeous, do that again,” Pete whispers, and Patrick gives it to him while Pete whines, fucks his hand languidly while Patrick grinds against his dry hip. 

“Over the winter,” Patrick gasps softly, “This is what I missed, I missed you.” He twists his hand and smooths the palm of his other hand over Pete’s ass. The bedsheets are shoved to his knees. 

“I know, I know,” Pete says quickly between quick kisses, Patrick’s mouth pressed softly and wetly against his. Patrick works his hand faster, almost too much, too dry, and, “Shit, let me— let me blow you,” Pete says. 

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes out. “Want your mouth on me,” and they both suck at talking in bed, but Pete comes apart right then, with Patrick palming the head of his cock and the thought of Patrick’s cock between his lips. Pete makes a choked noise with Patrick’s hand still working over his softening cock, Patrick’s erection pressed between his hip and his thigh, and then Pete is shoving the covers off his legs completely and pulling Patrick’s thigh over his shoulder. 

It’s not the best blowjob Pete’s ever given. It’s sloppy and lethargic, though not for lack of trying, Pete feels barely awake and fuzzy from his own orgasm, stomach still reverberating from the feeling of Patrick’s hands on his body. 

Patrick seems not to notice. Pete presses his tongue to the bottom of Patrick’s cock, lips wrapped loosely around the base, and loses himself in Patrick’s strangled noises. Patrick’s hands are on Pete’s face, petting absently, and Pete groans, and then Pete is choking on salt, pressing kisses to the inside of Patrick’s thigh while he mumbles, “So pretty, Gorgeous— fuck, I wanted this.” 

Patrick moans above him, muscles twitching under Pete’s mouth, and Pete kisses the crease of Patrick’s hip with a hint of teeth. Patrick makes a sharp noise, cock twitching. 

They lay like that for a while; Patrick strips off the sweatshirt, and Pete lays against him, pulls the covers over them, and listens to Patrick breathe and breathes in the scent of laundry detergent and Patrick, only slightly sweaty. He slides his hands over Patrick’s sides, and Patrick runs his fingers through his hair absentmindedly, like he could fall asleep again, and says softly, “I think we’re bad at this just friends thing.” 

Pete laughs and pokes him in the ribs. “What do you think about marriage?” 

“Not for me,” Patrick laughs, and indulges in the early morning vulnerability. “When you have divorced parents, it’s—” He thinks for a moment and chooses the words carefully. “Less appealing.” 

“And if your parents aren’t divorced, you wish they were.” 

“Exactly,” Patrick replies. He stretches his arms over his head with a long groan.

“You have daddy issues,” Pete tells him after kissing his forehead, and Patrick snorts and shakes his head. 

“Just ‘cause you’re so paternal in bed,” Patrick murmurs. He wraps his fingers around Pete’s bicep and smiles sweet before he whispers, “Mmm, _baby._ ”

♥

“I think I figured it out,” Pete tells him. It’s just past dusk, a week night, and weirdly warm for the end of March, and Pete lets his slice of pizza fall to his plate and audibly swallows. “And no spooky, unrealistic shit. It just took a more, ah— convoluted path than I had originally wanted.” 

It had been a drawn-out and exhausting week and Patrick looks at Pete over his dinner and feels better for it. He asks, uncertain, “Convoluted?” 

“Took a different path. It was supposed to be a mystery, like with clues, but it’s more philosophical now. Too many coincidences, intuition, manifestation— things like that,” Pete explains, and Patrick nods like he understands. 

“Can I say that seems more like you?” Patrick laughs and feels his heart lurch in his chest.

“I’m predictable,” Pete bemoans. He leans back against the counter with an eye roll.

“What’s manifestation?” 

Pete chews on his lip and stumbles around words before he comes up with, “Okay, here’s a crude explanation: it’s like when you really want something and then eventually you realize you can’t have it and forget about it, and then you get it. You have to let it go before it comes back.” 

“So the moral is that everything happens at the wrong time always? That’s a depressing takeaway.” 

Pete laughs. “Is that not how the world fucking works? You have everything you want and then it’s fucked over just because the timing isn’t right or there’s some weird external circumstance?” 

Patrick takes a bite of his dinner to keep himself from saying something worse. He chews and takes a moment to swallow before he asks, “Do they end up together?” 

The silence that settles over the kitchen is stale and makes the hair on the back of Patrick’s neck prickle. Pete closes the laptop with a terminal click and gives him a tight smile before he says, “Yeah, just not how I wanted. Convoluted, you know.”


	9. In which they play victim to the Dog Days.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You wouldn’t believe it’s July. I’ve been getting by on bruised produce and thrifted records."_ —Schuyler Peck

_April, Year III_

Victoria sends him a cursory email Thursday morning. His inbox dings while he’s editing work handed to him by a co-op earlier in the week, and Patrick opens the email and reads; 

> _Hi Patrick, hope you are doing well._
> 
> _Here is what I am thinking. I think a good time to make a decision would be the end of the summer season when we are winding down here. If it’s a possibility for you let’s plan for a visit during the summer and if all goes well and you are still interested then we will talk!_
> 
> _Let me know what your thoughts are and I will start looking forward to it!_
> 
> _Thanks again!!_
> 
> _Victoria  
> _

It’s not a matter of making things work. Patrick tells her yes immediately. 

♥

Patrick spends Friday night between Pete’s couch and Pete’s bedroom and they smoke and watch a horror movie. Pete scares him in the hallway and bribes him into the shower and they fall asleep late, stuck to each other like Scotch tape. 

“Pete,” Patrick says, minutes before falling asleep, and Pete hums in response. “I have to meet Hayley for coffee tomorrow at ten-thirty.”

“Pete,” Patrick says the following morning. 

Pete lies spread out across the bed with Patrick curled into his armpit. He shifts on the mattress and glances over Patrick’s kiss-bitten mouth and unkempt hair, damp from the shower. It’s late in the morning, the second time they’ve made it to bed, and dark in the room. It’s bright and sunny on the opposite side of the curtains. It’s getting warm in time for April.

Patrick inhales, sticking in the back of his throat, and asks, “Do you ever think if you don’t do something now you’re going to get stuck?” 

“Yes.” Pete rakes his fingers through Patrick’s hair. “All the time. Why?”

Patrick reaches for his phone on the nightstand. “Um— I got an email. Victoria wants me to come visit in office.”

Pete holds his palm flat to Patrick’s lower back while he reaches across the bed. He says, “You should go. When—”

Patrick interrupts him and presses the phone to Pete’s open hand. “Just read the email.” 

Pete reads the email, forehead creased, and returns the phone with a strange sense of finality. The change of tone is obvious in the room, and Patrick takes the phone back from him carefully. Pete pushes himself up with his elbows, covers pooling at his waist, and fixes Patrick with a look Patrick can’t read. Delicate things break when bent.

“So you’re going to move back,” Pete says, voice flat, demanding. 

“That’s not what it says,” Patrick replies carefully. “I might not even get the job.”

“You will get this job.” 

“You don’t know that,” Patrick argues back, petulant. 

“You will. You’re overqualified.” 

Patrick shakes his head and laughs, stilted, uncomfortable. “I’m not.”

“You are.” 

“That’s not the compliment you think it is.”

Pete nods once and the room becomes silent in the way the winter is silent, frigid weather and ice. The rustle of Patrick’s hand under the sheets is too loud, distracting, and Patrick stills and waits for the vicious retort, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Pete stares at the folds in the covers and appears deep in thought. 

“Here’s the thing,” Pete says quietly. He’s still naked, completely vulnerable, and fighting the urge to cry. “I think I’m a little— I think I’m falling in love with you.”

“Pete,” Patrick says cautiously. 

“Okay, just listen—”

“Pete,” Patrick says again, fast and hard. His palms sweat against his thighs under the sheets, and Pete looks thoroughly spooked. “That’s not fair.” 

Pete stares at him, mouth twisted and wordless. “Look,” he starts after a moment. “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t, I just want you to—”

Patrick laughs again, this time stale and awkward. “Yeah, because it’s not your choice anyway.” 

Patrick throws the covers to his knees and pulls on his shirt from the night before over his shoulders. He fixes his hair mindlessly in the mirror above Pete’s dresser, and from behind him, Pete rolls to his chest and says, “That’s not what I mean and you know that.” 

“Look,” Patrick tells him, strangled like there’s a hand around his throat, “I have to go meet Hayley for coffee. We can fight about this later.” He does up the buttons of his shirt in the mirror while Pete lies naked on his stomach across the bed behind him. Patrick can see him in the bottom right-hand corner of the mirror, Pete’s eyes trained on the back of his thighs.

“Are we fighting about it?”

Patrick’s hands tremble with what could be nerves or could be anger, and he finishes the last button of his collar and says, “Things just aren’t very black and white right now.” 

Pete rolls his eyes, huffs out a laugh, and sounds bored when he replies, “Yes, they are.”   


_Nothing gold can stay, like love or lemonade, or sun or summer days;_

_It’s all a game to me anyway. —_ Music to Watch Boys To

Patrick steps through the door of Pavement a few minutes before Hayley had agreed to meet him to find that the line is outrageously long and that Hayley is already there, sat at a round table in the corner with her laptop open. She gives him a small smile and a wave, and Patrick breathes a deep sigh of relief when she motions to two coffees on the table. 

Patrick drops his wallet, phone, keys, and train card on the table in front of him and shakes his head. His phone slips from the table and clatters to the floor, and Hayley gives him a look of disbelief and reaches under the table to grapple for it while Patrick stuffs the rest of his belongings in his pockets. 

“It’s ten in the morning and you’re already a mess,” Hayley tells him warmly.

Patrick forces a breathy laugh. “Just— it’s been a long morning.” He silences his phone and takes a long sip from his coffee before he tells her. “Got in an— uh, dispute? Yeah— with Pete this morning. He told me he loved me and, uh, I got weird because it was weird.”

Patrick loves Hayley. He loves her for her ability to be completed unfazed by anything, the way she runs the office despite having the role of Editor, and the way she can deflect any of his problems right back to him. 

“And what do you think?” she asks in response. 

“It was my fault. I think I might have over-reacted— and that’s not exactly what happened,” Patrick spills. He takes another sip from his coffee cup and continues, “What he actually said was, ‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ and then I was like, ‘okay, it’s too early in the morning for me to process this, I think.’ Um— I think that if it happened again I would do the same thing, though, I would still freak out. I should also mention this happened forty-five minutes ago, so I’m—"

Hayley saves him from himself and asks, “Do you think you’ll talk about it, or do you think you’re done?” 

“Shit,” Patrick says. “I don’t know. It’s only a matter of time, right?” 

Hayley gives him a long look. “You’re the only one who says that,” she states after a moment. “Do you think you’re saying that because you might have actual feelings for him?”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel. I’m still leaving.”

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“I mean, I don’t think that he meant it like—”

“Patrick,” she says sharply, and then quietly, “Please just answer the question.”

“I freaked out when Pete said he was falling in love with me because I think I’m falling in love with him,” Patrick blurts out suddenly. He takes a deep breath and continues, “But I’m still going to break up with him.” 

Patrick gives himself the afternoon to think about it. He calls Pete the minute he steps out of the shower and spits out, standing in the middle of his messy bedroom in only his underwear, “I’m not changing my mind, and I really did have to meet Hayley, but it didn’t have to be mean.” 

Patrick tosses his phone onto the bed, where it is quickly enveloped by the pile of sheets in the middle. 

“Look, I just—” Pete starts. Sitting at a red light and waiting on dinner with a client, Pete fixes his collar in the side mirror and fumbles with words. “I just need some time to think about it. I’m gonna— I don’t know, I’ll let you know.” 

“Okay,” Patrick replies. The phone is muffled and Patrick says, “Just call me later.”

Pete makes a tired face at himself in the mirror. “That’s all you have to say?” 

“What?” Patrick asks in return.

“Nevermind, I have to go,” Pete says.

♥

They don’t talk for a week, and in the time between, Pete spends the overwhelming majority of his free time in Gabe’s living room. 

“We need to go out this weekend,” Pete tells him. 

Gabe eyes him from the kitchen and says, “I’m not letting you drink your feelings.”

Pete shrugs, and Pete drags Gabe out with him anyway. The night finds them at the Fours, in their usual spot, and with his fingers wrapped habitually around his glass, Pete sighs and announces, “Okay, I’m ready, find someone to go out with me. You always know people.” 

“Rebound,” Gabe clarifies. “You want a rebound.” 

“A rebound, yeah, whatever, I want a rebound.” 

The request is demonstrative and obviously not premeditated and Gabe cautiously replies, “Remember when you said you didn’t want to meet anyone I had for you?” 

Pete raises his eyebrows and momentarily considers telling Gabe he doesn’t remember saying that. The look Gabe gives him is perceptive and it feels mocking, even if Pete knows it isn’t intended to be so. 

“How do you even remember that I fucking said that?” Pete asks. “Yeah, I said that two years ago. Come on, I’m serious.”

Gabe sidelines the conversation with a practiced awkwardness. “Dude, what the fuck are you drinking? Is that _pumpkin flavored_?” Gabe motions towards Pete’s beer, and Pete snatches it away from him and shoves at Gabe’s shoulder. 

“Hey,” Pete snaps. “You’re avoiding my request. I wanna go out with someone. I know you know someone.” Gabe shakes his head, and Pete scoffs and begs, “Please don’t babysit me.”

“What about the kid from law school parties?” Pete prompts, and Gabe shakes his head again. 

“No, it’s his brother— Mikey? I cannot fucking _believe_ you don’t know who this is. He’s really skinny and he used to cut his own hair.” 

This seems to do the trick and Pete drops his forehead to the bar and asks incredulously, laughing, “The one who was really into baseball?”

“No,” Gabe corrects. “He’s _obsessed_ with baseball.” 

“I can pretend I like baseball,” Pete tries. 

Gabe throws his arm over Pete’s shoulder on the way home and asks, playful and grounded in honesty, “Do you think this is a good idea?” 

Pete eyes him sideways and suddenly remembers with a dirty optimism that Gabe had introduced him to Patrick, and more than that, Gabe always has Pete’s best interests at heart.

_May, Year III_

They do go out. Mikey has good taste in beer and Pete finds out more about baseball in a couple of hours than he remembers learning in his lifetime. 

“I don’t think we’re going to play well this season, especially since we just traded Morales,” Mikey explains. 

Pete creases his forehead and chews on his French fries. “To who?” he asks.

“To the Rockies. It’s bad for us but it’s good for him.” 

“Hmm,” is all Pete can say. There is a brief moment of silence in which Mikey takes an awkward sip of his drink, and Pete quickly asks, “What did you say you do again?” 

Mikey swallows. “Uh— data analysis? My brother works at a law firm in Arlington and I work there, too.” 

Pete considers him for a moment and wonders if Mikey knows how obvious it is that he resents being attached to his brother. He winces internally knowing that it’s also the only connection he has with Mikey, and he doesn’t think he would recognize Mikey’s brother if they met. Mikey returns a questioning look and a small smile, and Pete thinks to himself that Mikey is likely far more intelligent than he presents himself to be.

On the sidewalk outside of Ro’s, Mikey watches him closely and Pete realizes for once in his life that he’s not sure what the post-date etiquette is. Mikey is fun and nice enough, but he’s not— _lovely?_ Pete thinks, and Mikey folds his arms over his chest and starts, “Hey, uh— thanks for coming out with me, it was fun.” 

He touches Pete’s wrist, and Pete laughs and says, “We should go out another time.” 

“Yeah, I would like that,” Mikey replies, and before they part ways, Pete leans to Mikey’s face and presses his mouth to Mikey’s, chaste and soft and entirely boring. 

Mikey gives him a small smile, and Pete says, “Goodnight, I’ll see you soon.”

_June, Year III_

And just like that, it’s summer again. If the summer before had been perfect, and the summer before that a chaotic amalgamation of good and evil, then it’s only right that this summer is the worst of them. It’s the same beer and swimming pools, sticky hot days and Gabe’s backyard as an escapist symbol, but it feels dustier. Patrick spends his weeks in the city office and his weekends at the beach house and thinks that it could have been another idealistic season if it weren’t for two things— one now permanently attached to Pete’s right side and the other that leaves him with an incomprehensible mix of adventure and doom. 

Maybe Patrick just feels left behind, like he’s the odd one out on the joke. It’s not funny, from what he can tell. He chats with Hayley during lunch and eats dinner alone and gets enough sleep. He calls someone to fix his air conditioner while he’s at work during the week and feels better for it. It’s a simple act of self-care and Patrick sits on his worn couch in the air conditioning with Sonkie on his lap and asks, “Who is coming to the beach house this weekend? Is it just us and Gabe and Erin? It’s not much of a party.” 

Pete makes a meager noise of agreement and tells him, “Gabe asked me if I wanted to invite Mikey to the party on Saturday.” There’s a short pause where Patrick’s hand stills in the fur between Sonkie’s ears, and Pete waits for the nasty remark, but it doesn’t come. Pete inhales and continues, “But I wanted to ask if you’d be mad. I was thinking we could go down Friday morning.” 

“I’m not going to be _mad,_ Pete, do whatever you want,” Patrick retorts. “I’m talking logistics with Victoria on Friday. I’ll just come down after.” 

Pete swallows and feels something like guilt brew in his chest. “If I leave with Mikey Thursday, can I leave you the Beamer? I can ask if we can take his car.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick sighs. “That will work.” 

“Are you okay?” Pete asks smally. 

Patrick scratches at the underside of Sonkie’s chin and answers, “Yes, Pete, I’m fine.” 

♥

Patrick lets himself into Pete’s apartment on Friday afternoon and finds the car keys on the kitchen counter. He steals a seltzer from Pete’s refrigerator and sends Pete a quick text to let him know he’s leaving.

There’s traffic on the interstate and it’s well into the evening when Patrick finally pulls into Gabe’s short gravel driveway. He fixes his hair in the tiny visor mirror and steels himself before he leaves the car in the driveway and steps onto Gabe’s deck through the sliding door. 

“Hey,” Patrick exhales and gives the crowd a tight smile. He feels stiff and sticky and the fleeting apprehensive look that crosses Pete’s face does nothing to make him feel better.

“How was the phone call?” Pete asks. 

He sounds genuinely interested, and Patrick looks between Pete’s eyes and Mikey’s foot wrapped around Pete’s ankle and nods. 

“Great,” Patrick says flatly. “It went really well.” 

“I brought beer,” Mikey announces. “There’s a True North and a— Great North, I think, too. Help yourself.” 

What Patrick really wants is to be asleep, stretched out in minimal clothing in the air conditioning, or otherwise tucked under Pete’s bed sheets with Pete’s legs over his because it’s too hot to touch in any other way. Mikey offers him an awkward truce, be it intentional or not, and Patrick meets Mikey’s small smile and says, “I’m all set, but— thank you, Mikey, I appreciate it.” 

The evening seems to crawl along. Patrick plays with his phone quietly for most of the night, or else he watches Pete and Mikey in the corner and feels sick. He feels cheap and greasy, but he can’t keep himself from watching. He’s terrified that one of them will look over at just the right time and Patrick will have to quickly avert his eyes and pretend like he hasn’t been watching Pete look at Mikey like _that,_ sharp teeth and soft eyes. It’s a floundering attempt at self-flagellation. Patrick’s stomach flips. 

The crowd disperses at some point during the night, but Patrick stays up late. He sits on the deck in one of four Adirondack chairs on Gabe’s deck with a canned wine spritzer he found in the fridge, ankles crossed one over the other, and watches the edge of the water over the line of bushes in Gabe’s backyard. The porch lights and the occasional light from his phone screen reflect off the silver can and everything feels dense and heavy in the dark. It’s a still night, and damp, and Patrick stares unthinkingly at the sand and saturates himself with the humid night air. 

Erin joins him for a little while with her own canned drink and sits across from him. She tosses the throw blanket from the couch inside across her long legs and says, “For the record, I think you’re making the right choice. We’ll miss you but you can always come back, you know— it’s just the other side of the world.” 

Patrick laughs. “It doesn’t feel _big,_ ” he says. “It just feels like getting on a plane, and it’s not just the move— it’s a lot of things.” 

“It’s a smaller world every day,” Erin notes. “You don’t realize it but it is.” 

She gives him a hug across the shoulders before she goes inside and asks him if he needs anything before bed. Patrick shakes his head and wonders if he could fall asleep out here and sleep until morning. He gives himself another hour before he strips his clothes and lies between the sheets of the second guest bedroom and tries to sleep. The house is eerily quiet in the early morning hours and finding sleep proves difficult when wondering if Pete has his face pressed to Mikey’s neck on the other side of the wall. Patrick rolls to his other side, back facing the wall, and finds it easier to sleep that way. He sleeps in the next morning. 

Pete wants him to go swimming. Pete always wants him to go swimming, a timeless dispute that leaves Patrick feeling sorry and Pete with a disappointed look. Mikey, however, willfully accepts the invitation and Patrick finds himself a place at the kitchen bar with Erin and tries not to look miserable. 

Erin opens her mouth briefly, closes it again, and studies the drink in her hands. “I probably shouldn’t—” she starts. Patrick gives her a curious look and Erin frowns and eventually admits, “You know that Pete and Mikey aren’t together, right? They’re just friends.”

Patrick hums and considers that there’s a lot of _just friends_ between them. “Yeah,” he replies carefully. 

“I’m going to go hang out outside for a bit,” she informs him. “Sorry.” 

Patrick gives her a fast nod and Erin stares at him piteously as she pulls the sliding door closed behind her.

Later, Pete leans across Mikey’s lap and grabs at his drink on the deck and Mikey shoves him back to where he’s draped himself over the chair and laughs. Patrick knows they’re both tipsy, a collection of red plastic cups and beer bottles scattered around the deck, but it doesn’t change the prickling feeling he gets in his chest when Mikey throws his arm over Pete’s shoulder and whispers something, his mouth to Pete’s ear, and Pete grins and whispers something in return. It feels a promise for later, like trading notes in class, and Patrick abruptly decides he’s done feeling sorry for himself. He brushes crumbs off of the front of his t-shirt and announces, “I think I’m gonna head out.”

Pete whispers something to Mikey with a concerned look and follows Patrick out the side gate to the front sidewalk, where Patrick is already shoving his belongings into the backseat of the borrowed car. 

“What?” Patrick asks shortly when he feels Pete behind him. He doesn’t turn around to look at him but continues packing his bags and towel into the backseat with unnecessary discipline. 

“I just wanted to say goodbye,” Pete tries. “You just left.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick replies. He tries to sound careless, but his mouth feels sticky, dry like he has a mouthful of sand. “I’m just— I’m not really feeling it.” 

With every curt answer and jarred movement, Pete becomes more and more aware that he’s guilty of something, that Patrick is upset with something he did, be it Mikey or an off-handed comment, or an argument that happened months ago and is just now making its way to the surface. 

“I don’t know what I did,” Pete says.

Patrick whips around on him and laughs, stunted and bitter. He touches Pete’s wrist and comes out with, “Yeah. It’s always a little bit like that, isn’t it?” 

Watching each other closely two steps away from Gabe’s doorstep, Pete experiences a strangling sense of déjà vu. Patrick stares at him with eyes that see right through his chest, wise and accusing, and Pete expects him to turn away immediately. Instead, Patrick challenges him for a moment, and then gives Pete a terse smile and coughs up, “I’ll see you later.” 

♥

Mikey comes over for dinner Wednesday night and Pete opens the door on him and says, “I’m sorry, I think we should talk.”

Mikey takes it well. He’s mostly unconcerned, and acts like he was expecting it when Pete starts, “I’m really sorry but I’m not ready to date anyone else. I know we haven’t really, um— I thought I could do both, but I think I just need some time to think about some other stuff.”

“Do both what?” Mikey asks. 

Pete considers his own words for a second and comes up with _be friends with Patrick and fuck someone else_ , but he shakes his head and says, “I don’t know. I just mean I want it to be fun for both of us and it’s not fair if I’m not into it not to tell you.” 

Mikey nods, a small smile playing across his narrow face, and Pete finishes with, “I just want to be honest. You can still stay for dinner.”

Mikey laughs, and Pete makes a sharp noise before Mikey touches his arm across the doorway and insists, “Pete, I know about Patrick. It’s fine.” 

Pete’s laugh is sharp and biting and confirms much more than he intends.

Pete calls him later just to feel better, fresh out of the shower and sitting in front of the air conditioner. The phone is on speaker and Patrick’s voice crackles over the purr of the air conditioner. 

“You know Victoria wants me to come visit in office,” Patrick tells him, star-fished under his duvet, no blankets, and no flat sheet. “And I’m going.” 

“I know,” Pete replies. He flips the light switch, blanketing the room in darkness, and prompts, “You should.”

_July, Year III_

The Friday before the Fourth of July weekend, Patrick presses his forehead to the glass of his twelfth-floor office and stares at the street below, at the busses and cars and bicycles moving slowly by in the constant traffic, and feels completely used up. 

It feels Gatsby-esque. Patrick chases the unattainable American dream in the form of one oblivious Boston corporate lawyer, and instead of extravagant parties in New York City mansions, Patrick wastes his weekends with bars and parties and people that don’t care about him. It feels that way, anyway; it feels like being lied to on a good day and feels like being betrayed when he’s being dramatic (always). The sun outside, the endless summer parties, and the alcohol mirrors the previous summer all too well, when Patrick had laid across the floor rug in his living room and told Pete that as soon as nothing was keeping him anchored to the East Coast, he was moving back to Italy. Retrospectively, it feels trivial.

Gabe hosts the Fourth of July weekend in his backyard in JP, because Pete insists that the beach is too busy and the weekend is more fun in the city, alcohol and parties and fireworks. Either way, Patrick thinks, it’s too hot to do anything but sit around. The heat gets to him; he feels sleepy and complaint, and now that Pete and Mikey spend less time together, he feels a little looser. He spends less time bottling up envy. He doesn’t feel good about it, but facts are facts. 

Pete sets his drink down on the glass table, and Patrick fixes him with a considering look, squinting against the sun, and cracks, “When are we going to do anything but hang out in Gabe’s backyard?”

Pete hums and skips the joke. “I feel like— I think I owe you an apology,” he starts.

Patrick stiffens. “If we’re doing apologies, then—”

Pete shakes his head and insists, “Don’t, and it’s true, and— why is it so much harder to apologize to you than to like, Mikey or Gabe? It’s just that I spent most of the summer with them, and I love Gabe and I don’t want to say that spending time with Mikey was a mistake, but I— you know I wish I spent it with you.” 

“You don’t have to—” Patrick starts, before Pete interrupts him.

“I’m not interested in anyone that isn’t you while I still have you.” 

Patrick swallows the lump in his throat and tries to be angry. “That’s transactional,” he bites back, but there’s little weight behind it. It shouldn’t be endearing, maybe implying that Pete is ready to ditch him for something better at the end of a year, but it makes sense at the time and Patrick can’t find the energy to be mad. “And I’m sorry.” 

“I know,” Pete replies. 

For a perfect moment, the backyard is quiet, save for conversations on the deck and crickets in the grass around them, and Patrick slides into Pete’s lap and throws a hand over his shoulders. Pete watches him with a diminutive smile, and Patrick looks between Pete’s dark eyes and Pete’s mouth and ruins it, mentally cursing himself, when he opens his mouth and asks, “Can I ask a nasty question?” Pete laughs, and Patrick continues without waiting for a yes or a no, “How far did you go?” 

“Mikey and I? I mean, yeah, but we never— like I just wasn’t into it."

Patrick nods like he’s thinking, and Pete sees right through it, laughing. “Erin told me,” Patrick admits with half a smile. Pete grins. 

“Of course she did. Can I make a suggestion?” Pete asks. Patrick hangs on his neck, and Pete touches his chin gently. 

“Yes,” Patrick replies shortly. The sun reflects in the lenses of his sunglasses and Pete squints to see behind them, trying to judge Patrick’s reaction. Patrick’s eyes are bright and Pete swallows a laugh. 

“I think,” Pete says slowly. “If you really want this job, and you come back from Italy and think that you got the job, we should just say we’re done trying to figure it out and fuck like bunnies. You should spend your last month here happy.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick laughs. “Yeah, okay.” 

Pete grabs his face in one hand, a little rough, and Patrick kisses him back carefully until he softens, tension melting from Pete’s fingertips and his face with every soft press of Patrick’s tongue to his. It feels like a promise or a handshake cementing a childish blood oath and it feels right. Patrick inhales the scent of the campfire smoke stuck to Pete’s skin and thinks that he got this right, the angle and the feeling of Pete’s lower lip matched to his before Pete takes a shaky breath and Patrick makes a conscious decision to stop thinking. Patrick goes home with his mouth bruised and feeling warm between his ears.

♥

It isn’t a vacation and it doesn’t feel like one. Patrick spends most of the eight-hour flight, mostly free from distraction, working at what he can without paying for in-flight internet and spends the layover and consequent shorter flight caffeinated and brewing with anxiety. 

Pete calls him while he’s swiping the hotel key card through the lock in the door, and Patrick fumbles with his bags and the phone and key in his hand and rolls his eyes when Pete asks, “How are you doing? Stressing yet?”

“I’ve been up for thirty-two hours,” Patrick tells him sharply, kicking his suitcase under the bed in the small hotel room. It barely fits, and Patrick sighs into the phone and flops onto the mattress. 

“You didn’t sleep on the plane?” 

“Worked. Look, I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m done.”

“As soon as you’re done,” Pete insists lightly. 

Patrick rubs at his eyes with his knuckles and lies, “Yeah, as soon as I’m done.” Pete laughs at him.

He gets up early the next morning, showers, and dresses in what must be a record time, hot from anxiety and running on adrenaline and lack of sleep. His white shirt is slightly wrinkled from being packed in the suitcase but clean, and Patrick studies himself in the bathroom mirror and tells himself, “This is easy enough.” He touches his hair and picks at a freckle he doesn’t remember having. “It’s like the same job you already have. They already like you.” 

He buys a coffee and a pastry at the small shop across the street. He spends a few minutes at a table there figuring out how to get from the hotel to the magazine office and gets on the bus with a few minutes to spare. The bus is busy and Patrick applauds himself for purchasing the bus pass the night before. 

The office is on the second floor of an older building and Patrick presses the intercom button with sweating hands, before Victoria opens the door for him, dark hair and treacherous-looking heels. She smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear before she extends her hand to greet him, and Patrick gets the fast impression that she could be mean if she wanted to. 

Patrick spends the morning following Victoria around the office, asking the appropriate questions, and meeting more people than he can reasonably remember. Joe seems genuinely excited to see him and Nate seems genuinely excited to meet him, and Patrick smiles and shakes hands and thinks incidentally that he is unlikely to remember any of this. He makes plans on the spot to get drinks with Joe before he leaves and Victoria laughs, joking that, “Jesus, the last thing we need in this office is another alcoholic.” 

Like Hayley’s start-up, Victoria tells him that the magazine takes a break during the summer months.

“William is on vacation this week, but you’ll meet him,” Victoria tells him in passing. “He’s very sweet. He does all our sales analysis.”

It seems there are a number of people on vacation, and between the actual vacation and having a person hired to work specifically on profit, it is then that Patrick realizes that Victoria has it together, that she doesn’t deal with the exhausting issues specific to self-publishing, or edit the works of first-year college students. It’s a tempting thought.

She hands him a copy of the magazine on the way out. The cover is thick and glossy, a sunny yellow border around black and white images of a show, clearly the focus of the contents inside, and the word _Tempo_ scrawled across the front. Patrick shakes her hand a final time and thanks her profusely and shoves the folded magazine into his armpit as the door closes behind him. 

He flips through the pages on the bus ride back to the hotel, making mental notes of the layouts he does and doesn’t like and wondering if it’s cheating to show it to Hayley before he goes, as a vision project. He spends the afternoon looking at apartments online, cooped up in his hotel room and crouched over his laptop. He stops when his eyes are crossing and it’s late, so Patrick gets dinner and settles into his room for the night before he calls Pete. 

“How was it?” Pete asks. 

Patrick chews on his dinner lying across the bedsheets and propped up against the pillows, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. He sets the container down between his legs and replies, “Good.”

Pete laughs. “Just good?” 

Patrick thinks for a moment and says finally, “No, it was really good. Everyone seemed really nice. I got to meet the guy I’d be working with and he was super chill. The office space is nice. They gave me a copy of the magazine. I can show you later.” 

There’s a soft noise over the phone and Pete asks, “Are you excited?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick replies. “Yeah, I’m really excited.” 

Pete’s small smile is evident through the phone. “Hey, Gabe says we can have the beach house for the weekend. I already said I’d pick you up, so want to drive down to Newport together Friday night?”

Patrick chews on the fork in his mouth and thinks it sounds like exactly what he needs, a vacation from his vacation, a weekend alone with Pete to get fucked up and get fucked and soak in the sun. He savors the thought and tells Pete, already exhausted, “I’m probably going to be exhausted.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Pete replies. “It’ll be relaxing. I just want to see you.” 

Patrick sounds tired when he says, “I miss you.” 

Pete doesn’t reply to his words exactly. Instead, he smiles to himself and says, “I’ll have the black Beamer, you know which one.”

♥

The plane hits the tarmac at Logan a few minutes before ten and Patrick wastes no time in throwing together his bags and breezing through the terminal. His phone comes to life with a buzz and Patrick reads,  _Outside. I can wait_

Pete wraps him in a one-armed embrace and throws Patrick’s luggage in the trunk of the car, and Patrick slides into the passenger seat of the BMW and it feels like home. 

“How was the interview?” Pete asks, and Patrick fumbles with his backpack between his knees and rolls his eyes.

“You already asked me that,” Patrick mutters under his breath. “Like two days ago,” and Pete laughs, loud in the car, and pulls Patrick’s face to his with delicate fingers. “I’m so fucking tired,” Patrick tells him.

It feels like a second first kiss, expectant and overwhelming, and Pete’s mouth is still on his while Patrick draws a shaky inhale and drags Pete closer with an arm looped around his shoulder. Patrick kisses him, fingers tangled in the collar of Pete’s t-shirt, until the car behind them honks, and Patrick considers rolling down the window and flipping them off. Instead, he rests his forehead against Pete’s and asks, “Can we go to CVS?” 

Pete kisses the corner of his mouth, his cheeks, and the end of his nose, and Patrick wrinkles his nose and exhales. Pete replies, “Yeah, do you need something?” His voice is warm and his mouth pressed to the soft spot below Patrick’s ear, and Patrick swallows and makes a small noise when Pete’s teeth find the curve of his ear. 

“Excedrin, Tylenol, I don’t care. I have a headache from the plane. Coffee, maybe,” Patrick babbles, Pete’s mouth still on his neck. 

“I’m sorry,” Pete replies softly. “I’ll get you home as soon as I can so you can sleep.” 

Patrick meets his mouth in a kiss sweeter than the coffee he’d had on the plane, five packets of sugar just to make it bearable, and whines, “But I don’t _want_ to go to sleep when I get home.” 

His chest burns with saccharine embarrassment, his cheeks hot, but Pete laughs softly and kisses his face again. Pete touches his chest, warm under his fingers, and says, “Then I’ll bring you to CVS and then we can go home so you can not-sleep.” 

Patrick kisses him once more before Pete starts the car, and against his mouth, Patrick mutters, “I think my headache’s getting better.” 

Patrick tells him some about the trip from the hotel to the office on the way to the pharmacy, rambling through a couple of apartment options and some venues Victoria told him to search for online, and they end up in the closest CVS outside of the city. The parking lot is mostly dark and absolutely deserted. The digital clock on the dashboard reads 10:13 PM and Pete touches the illuminated numbers and says, “It’s an hour early. It’s eleven.” Patrick nods and Pete continues, “I can run in. I’ll be right back.”

Pete tosses the cellophane bag in Patrick’s lap when he returns and Patrick reaches into the bag and stills. “I was thinking,” Patrick stutters. “What if— you can fuck me right here.” 

He’s hot thinking about it already, Pete’s hands on his hips and fucking up into him, gently at first and then harder, more arrhythmic, when Patrick drops his forehead to Pete’s shoulder and whines for _more, come on, I can take it,_ and Pete kisses his neck and pulls Patrick’s hips to his— 

The quiet hum of the climate control is the only sound in the car for a moment until Pete makes a strangled noise and leans over the center console to kiss him. Pete tangles his fingers in the soft hair at the back of Patrick’s skull, and Patrick laughs against his mouth and asks, “Is that a yes?”

Pete pulls away, eyes dark, and asks, “Ride me in the front seat? I think there’s condoms in my wallet.” 

Patrick quirks an eyebrow. “Lube?”

“My bag’s in the backseat,” Pete tells him dumbly, and Patrick wastes no time launching himself over the console and into the backseat in search of Pete’s packed bag. “If it’s not in there then— I mean, we’re at CVS.” 

“No, I got it,” Patrick breathes after a moment, and then asks after handing him the travel-sized container, “Switch with me?” 

Pete slams the car door behind him and slides into the passenger seat of the BMW, and Patrick pulls the waistband of his jeans over his thighs when he crawls into Pete’s lap, knees neatly bracketing Pete’s narrow hips. He can feel Pete’s erection beneath his, stiff and hot, and Patrick reaches between them just to touch and is slightly surprised when Pete kisses him back desperately. 

“Wait,” Pete exhales when Patrick reaches for his shirt. “Just get up for a second so I can—” 

“Yeah,” Patrick laughs in reply, and Pete undoes the button of his jeans and shoves both his jeans and underwear to his knees, awkward in the small space, before he pulls Patrick’s hips back to his and Patrick’s mouth back to his with one arm wrapped around Patrick’s lower back and the other wrapped around his neck.

The first touch of Patrick’s fist wrapped loosely around their cocks has them both gasping, and Pete kisses him like he needs him to breathe. Patrick twists his hand and swallows the noise Pete makes into his mouth, and says, “You had the lube, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Pete echoes and reaches to grab the container from the driver’s seat. The cap comes undone with a click and Patrick watches closely as Pete messes with the tube and finally asks, “Okay?” 

“Yeah, come on,” Patrick tells him and makes a soft noise when Pete presses two fingers inside him, slick and cold. He’s still for a moment before he pulls on Pete’s cock again, teasing, and says, “Love, come on, I’m good.” 

Figuring it out in the front seat of the car takes a little longer than it usually would, but Patrick takes their cocks in hand and rolls his hips, lets Pete’s fingers slide inside of him and back out and finds Pete’s mouth with his. It’s already sloppier, less accurate and more determined, and Pete wraps his other hand around Patrick’s ass and leaves teasing bites on his collar, his neck, and the underside of Patrick’s jaw.

Pete twists his fingers just right, and Patrick gasps, grinds his erection into Pete’s chest while Pete leaves kisses up his sternum and each of his ribs. Patrick’s shirt is stuffed into his armpits and stretched tight across the back of his shoulders and he shifts to fix it, nudging Pete’s fingers right where he wants them and Patrick forgets about the shirt entirely. 

“Oh,” Patrick breathes, shifts his weight again. and pulls his lip into his mouth. Pete stills him with one hand sliding down to wrap around Patrick’s thigh. and Patrick lets his eyes flutter closed and says, voice high, “Do that again.” 

So Pete does it again, his mouth pressed to Patrick’s collar as he keeps Patrick still with one hand and fingers him with the other, until Patrick laughs, “Okay.” Forehead pressed to Pete’s and close enough for his eyelashes to tangle with Pete’s eyebrow, he pushes back against Pete’s fingers and breathes, “Want your cock now, let’s—”

Patrick smooths the palm of his hand over the head of Pete’s cock, and Pete slips his fingers to shove Patrick’s damp hair off his forehead and leave biting kisses up the side of his neck. Patrick fumbles with the condom and lube and rolls his eyes before he squeezes his eyes shut, tips his head to his shoulder, and laughs. 

“Ugh,” Patrick fusses, but he figures it out, and then Pete strips his shirt and Patrick is grinding his dick against Pete’s bare chest. “Fuck, I’m—”

“Can’t believe this is what I was missing all summer,” Pete tells him in a murmur, his fingertips pressing white marks into Patrick’s ribs as he holds Patrick upright above his cock. 

“Yep,” Patrick replies drily, voice wrecked. “And whose fault was that?” he asks before the universe slips into oblivion. Patrick sinks onto his cock in the tight space, a picture of bliss, and forgets his own name, much less his interview and the weird thing at customs and the splintering feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Gorgeous,” Pete breathes after a beat. “Fuck.” 

It takes him a moment to adjust, and Pete runs his palms down Patrick’s sides and pulls his shirt back down around his waist. He kisses Patrick’s shoulder and the underside of his jaw and waits for Patrick to roll his hips gently, hiccup, and tell him, breathless, “I’m too tired to negotiate right now, just fuck me.” Patrick kisses the soft spot below Pete’s ear and rolls his hips, and feels Pete’s hands tighten to the point of leaving bruises on his chest.

“Good?” Pete asks after a moment, and Patrick whines in response, toes curling where they brush with Pete’s knees. 

“Yeah,” Patrick sighs. He rests his temple on Pete’s shoulder and pushes his aching cock into Pete’s hand. “But more.”

It shouldn’t be hot, or emotional, or intense, or any description that usually follows a mention of good sex, but it _is;_ Patrick’s knee pressed into the center console and sweating in the car, the windows too fogged up to see out of, but Patrick rolls his head backward and revels in the feeling of Pete’s incisors on his neck, not hard enough to leave a mark, but close enough. There’s eighties pop on the radio, low through the stereo system, and Pete’s clothes are thrown over the backseat and it’s perfect in some juxtaposed way, stuck together like they’ve spent the last year and a half. 

Pete fucks him steady, thoroughly, and Patrick sits back against his hands, grinds his teeth together and sighs when it’s good, and bitches him out when it’s not quite right. His own cock fisted in his hand and hand slick with lubricant, Patrick strokes himself off and chokes on Pete’s name, and Pete pushes his hips towards the ceiling as Patrick slides down his cock perfectly. Patrick whines, high in his throat and startled out of him. 

“Fuck, do that again,” Patrick demands, and Pete does, picks Patrick off his lap and snaps his hips up to meet Patrick’s, and Patrick whines again and meets him with an open-mouthed kiss, wet and clumsy like he’s drunk.

Patrick stills just before he comes, trembling across Pete’s lap with his hands fisted in the front of Pete’s shirt, and Patrick makes a high, startled noise in his throat and comes with Pete’s teeth in his lower lip. Pete fucks him through it, rolling his hips against Patrick’s soft ass with hands wrapped firmly around each of Patrick’s hips while Patrick writhes in his lap, and then a short time later, Pete pulls Patrick’s hips to his sharply with two hands on his ass, grinds his cock further into Patrick, and comes apart right then. Patrick pants quietly in his ear and Pete comes with a soft grunt and then is silent, mouth open and eyes comically wide.

Patrick collapses against his chest immediately after, drops his face to Pete’s shoulder, and gulps in humid air like he hasn’t taken a breath in days. His hands find each other linked behind Pete’s back and he can’t be bothered with the feeling of Pete’s cock softening inside of him. It hurts already, the insides of his thighs and his upper abdominals, and Patrick thinks of asking him to kiss it better tomorrow and smiles against Pete’s neck. 

“Every time I get in this car, I’m going to think of this,” Pete tells him through a quiet laugh and kisses his shoulder, the seam where his shirt collar meets his neck. “Come on, Gorgeous, let’s go home.” 

The feeling of Pete’s soft cock leaving his body is uncomfortable, leaves him feeling thoroughly lacking, and Patrick makes a soft moan, arms tightening around Pete’s ribs. He feels overstimulated and utterly spent until Pete drags his fingernails over the ridges of Patrick’s chest, and Patrick finds his mouth with his eyes closed. It’s more instinct than anything else, the familiar warmth of Pete’s mouth under his and the heat of Pete’s chest pressed to his in the tiny space. 

“You better think of me every time you’re in this car,” Patrick teases, barely a threat, and Pete sighs. 

“Yeah,” Pete replies, barely a whisper. “Not a problem.” 

Patrick falls asleep in the passenger seat on the way to Newport, curled up with Pete’s sweatshirt, and Pete turns the radio down to a low audible buzz and lets a growing sense of loss keep him awake on I-395.

♥

Victoria calls to tell him the job is his if he wants it on the last day of July and Patrick is unbearably excited. He tries not to show it, but he must sigh into the phone, because Victoria laughs and tells him, “Sit with it, call me back when you’re ready to chat.”

The last day of July is a stifling heat, a stifling humidity, reflecting off the streets and the sidewalks and making it difficult to move. The month had been hot as usual, but not as hot as this, thick and oppressive, and Patrick thinks about the previous summer with a deep bitterness. 

Patrick is not unbearably excited to tell Pete, and thinks of divulging secrets wrapped in Pete’s fleece blankets, and Pete refusing to let him buy dinner, bringing him coffee at the office when he ‘works’ from home, and letting it all happen, oblivious to himself. He shoves it down to the bottom of his ribcage, where no one will ever find it, sitting in Pete’s car alone. 

Patrick stares at himself in the tiny warped mirror in the sun visor of the borrowed car. It makes his nose look wider and his eyes closer together. The car has been baking in the sun for the morning, and Patrick sits in the car on the street outside his apartment, soaking in sweat. The phone rings in his hand. 

Pete picks up on the fourth ring, entirely neutral. Pete’s phone rings seven times before it goes to voicemail, Patrick would know.

“Hey,” Pete says. “What’s up?”

“I have to tell you something,” Patrick blurts out. He pulls at the collar of his shirt. 

Pete is momentarily silent on the other end of the phone, before he says, “Um— okay.” 

Patrick swallows audibly. “I have to move back. To Italy. I, um— I got the job.” 


	10. In which Pete throws a bummer party.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”_ — F. Scott Fitzgerald

_July, Year III.II_

“I have to move back,” Patrick tells him. “To Italy,” and Pete is upset. Not as much as he expects, though, or not in the way he expects. Like circling the date on the calendar, the definition makes it real and August slips through his fingers like water and grains of sand. Tangled in each other’s sheets and each other, Pete thinks time and time again that there is a Sharpie marker circle around a blurry date at the end of August, but it doesn’t feel real. It feels like a cruel joke. 

Patrick speaks seven words, the same number of times Pete’s phone rings, and Pete swallows the panic threatening to climb in this throat and decides he’s going to be normal.

He rests his elbows on his kitchen countertops and presses his eyes to the heels of his hands. “That’s great,” Pete says. His enthusiasm is shaky and he forces himself to physically brighten. He hopes the faux positivity isn’t evident through the phone when he reiterates, “That’s fantastic! I’m so excited for you!” 

Patrick is still staring at himself in the mirror of the sun visor. “Yeah,” he answers slowly and goes back to critiquing his features in the misshapen plastic. His mouth is twisted. One of his pupils is larger than the other, and then he’s laughing. “I’m— I’m so fucking excited, but I’m—” 

“Want to do dinner and celebrate?” Pete interrupts. “Let me buy you a drink?” 

It takes Patrick an inordinate amount of time to realize he should be crying. Pete’s familiar voice on the other end of the phone is thick with feigned optimism, and the mix of radical excitement and consuming dread leaves him feeling mostly numb. “Pete, I—” he starts, clears his throat, and blinks back tears that aren’t there. “Are you mad at me?” 

Pete laughs, a strangled sound from his shallow chest, and asks again, “Can we have this conversation in person? I do need my car back eventually.” 

Patrick wipes at his eyes with his shirt sleeve and agrees, “Yeah. I can get dinner. Text me what you want.” 

Patrick calls in the order and immediately after hanging up, dials Pete’s number again and chokes out, “I don’t want to get off the phone with you.”

Pete laughs. “Why?”

Patrick takes a shaky inhale, fingers tightening around his phone, and says, “Because then it’s going to feel real.” 

Patrick shows up with take-out and Pete lets him in with a clinging hug. They eat in a comfortable silence; Pete standing with his elbows on the island, leaning toward Patrick and Patrick sitting across from him. They’ve been silently acknowledging the weight in the room. It’s quiet but pervasive and it makes them both itchy. 

Pete watches him carefully across resin countertops and Patrick meets dark eyes and swallows. “It’s not about you, you know.” 

“Yeah,” Pete replies, still chewing. 

Later, sitting across from each other on Pete’s tiny balcony, Pete stares at the cars in the street and asks on a sharp inhale, “Can I say something terrible?” 

Patrick doesn’t move from where he’s sitting, legs folded under himself in the chair. “Yup.” 

Pete’s mouth twists slightly. “Mikey’s not really— ambitious,” he starts. He huffs out an awkward laugh. “And I don’t think the dumb jock persona works for him.” 

“Why?” 

Pete shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s just— he’s smart; he could do something else.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick concedes, “But why do you care if Mikey is ambitious? You want him to be the next Macbeth?” 

Pete laughs again. “Well, no, but— he says his life goal is to have a family, and all he does for himself is watch baseball.”

Patrick makes a face somewhere between confusion and disbelief. Pete waits for him to agree that Mikey’s base desires are bland, but instead, Patrick straightens his legs, hips cracking, and corrects, “And? That’s a fine life goal.” Pete shrugs. Patrick continues, “You and Mikey are talking about your life goals?"

Pete pauses to think and eventually shrugs again. “We don’t really. He just told me.”

“That’s—” Patrick starts and swallows the rest of the comment. “I thought you guys had a— uh, _superficial_ relationship, like baseball and hockey or whatever you talk about.” 

Pete snorts but doesn’t give an answer, and Patrick decides he doesn’t care. Pete tells him, “Hockey is better than baseball.”

Patrick scoffs. “What’s the difference? Is that what this is really about?”

“Don’t know,” Pete says suddenly. “What’s yours?” 

“Don’t know,” Patrick agrees. “Probably to be happy, I guess.” 

Pete sits back into the chair and carefully stacks his ankles on the balustrade of the balcony. “Mikey doesn’t have the same egocentric streak we do.” 

Patrick scrubs at his eyes. “God,” he says tiredly. “It’s probably for the best.” Pete nods, thinking, and Patrick asks, “Can we smoke? I’m— I could use it.” 

“Yeah,” Pete agrees. 

Pete carefully rolls the joint between them and passes it to Patrick. Patrick puts the end in his mouth, asks, “Light me?” and leans over to let Pete light him up. He takes a deep breath and feels warm inside like he rarely does when he’s not with Pete, full in the way that only good food and good sex makes him feel, and remains acutely aware of Pete watching him smoke. He hands the joint back to Pete when he’s finished. He watches the street when Pete takes a hit, shakes burnt paper off of his hand, and thinks that everything about Pete is too much right now.

Even high, anxiety brews in Patrick’s stomach. He feels like two different people— one tied to Pete, feeling naive and inexperienced and exploring what it means to love and be loved, and the other tied to feeling like he has to get out, like moving back will secure the feeling of childhood safety and happiness he can’t abandon. Surely childhood security can only blossom into the habits of a functioning adult. 

Retroactively, Patrick thinks they owe each other nothing— nothing except an awkward sprint over two years of making out at parties turned perfect call-it-commitmentless sex turned into what is likely the most intimate relationship of Patrick’s life. Patrick considers the staggering number of afternoons he has spent high in Pete’s apartment or enthusiastically naked in Pete’s bed, and tells himself that it’s not time wasted. It could have been something else, but in light of his own tendency to drop the gun and run as soon as he’s forced to be sincere and Pete’s dating history (unstable at best), Patrick is avoiding consequences like they are contagious. 

All things considered, he’s doing a damn good job at it.

Pete catches him playing with the lighter and asks, “When’s your flight?” 

The lighter clicks in his hands. “September second. It’s a Thursday,” Patrick tells him slowly, as if it matters. 

Pete frowns. “And you’re still gonna talk to me?” 

“I have plans to never speak to you again, actually,” Patrick drily replies. He’s mildly annoyed with Pete’s implication that he’s just a timeless fling and stifles an eye roll, blinking. He flicks the lighter again. 

Half the blunt is left, and Patrick is hoping they don’t finish it, wants to remember everything about the night without feeling foggy. He feels implosive. Pete is understandably quieter than usual, loose from the weed, and Patrick wants to cling to him until his heart feels warm again and he can breathe without thinking about it. 

“I meant what I said before,” Patrick says. “It’s not about you.” 

“Yeah,” Pete says again.

Patrick has to kiss him. He can’t think of anything else to do. He finds it impossible to verbalize how he feels about Pete and how he feels about leaving, so he crawls into Pete’s lap, straddlinghis thighs, and kisses the corner of Pete’s mouth. Pete’s response is immediate, he grinds the blunt out on the table beside them and wraps his arms around Patrick, pulling him in until their chests are flat against each other. Pete can feel Patrick breathing against him, full of expectations and anxiety, but when Pete kisses him back, Patrick stops breathing and melts. 

_There’s things I want to say to you, but I’ll just let you leave,_

_Like if you hold me without hurting me, you’ll be the first who ever did. —_ Cinnamon Girl

They kiss like they’re desperate, because they are; Patrick kisses him like he’s drowning, vibrating with anxiety and want, but Pete is firm and real underneath him. 

“Hey,” Patrick breathes between open-mouthed kisses. “Fuck you for this.” Pete laughs into his mouth, bites his lip gently, and Patrick’s hands tighten on Pete’s hips. 

“For what?” 

“Literally everything.”

“You don’t mean that.” 

“I do,” Patrick gasps. “Fuck you.” 

Pete hums a soft agreement against his mouth, and Patrick kisses him until his heartbeat slows, anxiety dampened by Pete’s mouth on his and the feeling of being wanted. Pete’s hands have covered every inch of Patrick’s back under his shirt. Patrick sits with his knees thrown over Pete’s lap haphazardly as they smoke the rest of the evening, exchanging kisses as they pass the blunt to each other. 

“Go inside?” Patrick suggests. 

“Yes,” Pete says, and the rest of the night is easy. 

_August, Year III_

In a twisted sense, and after the initial awkwardness, August is the best month of Pete’s life. They fuck the friendship and fuck each other instead. With the end in sight, Patrick comes unleashed just a little, loses the cautious persona, and spends the rest of the month in Pete’s lap, Pete’s fingers tight on his hips, his tongue stuck to the roof of Pete’s mouth. 

“I’m using all my earned vacation time now,” Patrick tells him over the phone and laughs, golden and teasing as usual. “I’m free for almost the entire month. Give me something to do.” 

They’ve been on the phone for an hour and talking like Patrick remembers doing as a teenager, sitting on a barstool against the kitchen wall and twisting the telephone cord of the landline around his pinkies. 

Pete hums in reply. He’s putting in his contacts and staring at himself in the mirror, running out the door for dinner at Gabe’s and procrastinating ending the call. He’s already late. Pete says, “Pack up all your shit?” 

Patrick seems less than enthused at the proposition. There’s a long sigh and Patrick says, “Yeah, I should.” 

“I can help sometime if you want.” 

“Hayley is going to help me,” Patrick replies quickly. In truth, he hasn’t asked Hayley but he’s pretty sure she’ll agree to help, and spending a day with Pete, sorting his messy belongings and packing boxes sounds nightmarish. He lies, “We’re picking a Friday night and probably a weekend.” 

“I really don’t mind helping,” Pete insists. 

Patrick pretends to think about it. “I think Hayley and I will do it.” 

Pete’s contact falls in the sink. “Ah, shit, hold on,” Pete says, and he’s silent for a moment, searching the ceramic surface for it. He suggests, “Do you want to—? We could spend another weekend at the beach. I can ask Gabe.” 

“Alone?” Patrick asks. “Would be fun.” 

“Yeah,” Pete answers. “Pick a weekend.”

♥

August is cooler than usual, wet and damp, and it pours every Tuesday, on schedule. A misty month fuses days and weeks together and Pete doesn’t hit the wall of realization until days or weeks later, but when he does, it sneaks up on him and then soaks him in frustrated tears.

The weather has been wet all week and the backyard smells of mud and someone’s cookout. Gabe’s dog shoves himself under Pete’s legs, and Pete throws one ankle on top of the other and admits to himself and his audience, _Patrick’s leaving and I’m in love with him,_ but it comes out, “Fuck, I’m tired.” 

Gabe hands him a glass and a bottle opener. “You didn’t want to go out.” 

Pete pops the cap on his beer and grimaces. “Mikey wanted to go out, too and I—” The beer cap rolls under his chair and the dog sniffs at it. “I said I was going to the beach next weekend so I was saving my alcohol consumption.”

Gabe hums. “Did you tell him who you’re going with?” Pete shakes his head and Gabe starts, “Have you considered just telling—?”

Pete interrupts him. “He knows.” 

“I know, but as of right now—”

“As of right now I have a month and I’m trying to make the best of it.” 

“Ask if you can try long distance.” 

Pete takes a long drink from his glass and announces, “Cambridge to the South End is long distance.” 

“Fuck off,” Gabe replies. “You know what I mean.” 

“What difference does it make?”

Gabe shrugs and supplies, “I just don’t know if forced apathy is the answer.”

Gabe leaves him on the sidewalk with a long hug and the key to the beach house at the end of the night. It’s an embrace without implications and Pete lets Gabe hold him for longer than Gabe had likely intended. Gabe is the necessary undying constant and Pete folds the key and the lanyard into his pocket and says, “I asked Patrick if I could help him pack and he definitely didn’t want my help.”

Gabe squeezes him and says, “Yeah, because neither one of you would come out of that alive.” 

Pete shrugs as best he can while enclosed in Gabe’s arms. “I still wanted to help.”

♥

Hayley does help him pack most of his things. Patrick stands in the center of his living room and prepares to delegate. The room looks ever messier than usual with flattened cardboard boxes and plastic bins scattered between the few belongings Patrick has already pulled out to begin packing. Hayley looks up at him from where she sits cross-legged on the carpet and Patrick surveys the room with a tired expression and sighs. 

“Okay,” he starts, “If it’s going with me, it can go in a plastic bin, if it’s donation then it goes in a cardboard box, and if it’s garbage, then—” He gestures vaguely.

“Then we’re throwing it in the garbage,” Hayley finishes. She nods, satisfied, and immediately reaches for a pile of clothes balanced on the edge of the couch. 

“I’m taking those with me,” Patrick quickly tells her. 

Making a decision about the emotional value of each of his belongings, Patrick finds, is much more exhausting than anticipated. Some of it is obviously garbage, some papers that Patrick had saved at some point and socks with holes in the heel, but other things are more difficult, like the raincoat he wears once in a year but had cost a lot and the quilt that his aunt had made for him, beautiful but bulky and incredibly heavy. Hayley asks him about item after item and after a few hours, Patrick is ready to lie facedown in his bedsheets and scream. 

“I don’t know,” Patrick says, tired. “Just chuck it. If I don’t need it, just fucking chuck it.” 

“What about this?” Hayley asks. It’s a tiny glass sea turtle that Pete had found washed up on the beach and given to him. Hayley clearly doesn’t know. “Are we chucking this?” 

Patrick stares at the figurine and rakes a hand through his hair. His words feel dry, sticky in his throat, and Patrick takes a shaky inhale and manages, “I don’t— I don’t know. Just get rid of it, I guess. It can go in the donation pile.” 

Hayley seems to notice the change in tone and gives him a sympathetic look. She places it delicately, wrapped in paper, into a cardboard box with some reservation. Patrick watches her do it, frozen, and Hayley says softly, “We can be done for the day.” At Patrick’s nod, she offers, “Want to get dinner?” 

Hayley orders pizza for delivery while Patrick moves boxes around in the living room to make space to eat, and a short while later, Patrick is eating his leftover pizza crusts off a paper plate between his knees. 

Halfway through a bottle of truth serum disguised as red wine and some dark chocolate from the grocery store on the corner, Patrick rolls up his paper plate and shoves it in one of many black garbage bags in the room. He dusts his fingers on the front of his jeans, swallows, and says, “Pete wanted to help and I told him no.” 

“I think that’s— fair,” Hayley says carefully. Plate in hand, Hayley bites the end off of her slice of pizza and mumbles, “It might have been good, though. I don’t understand the pretending thing.” They shrug at each other, and Hayley asks, “How’re you going to deal with quitting cold turkey?” 

“It’s not like cigarettes,” Patrick replies bitterly. “I can control myself.” 

“Why won’t you try something long distance?” 

Patrick shrugs and admits, “Because I already know I couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t be fun. I’ve already, like— postponed this breakup far too long.” Hayley is silent, thinking, and lying against the bare and worn hardwood floor, Patrick throws his elbow over his eyes and groans. “Am I throwing my whole life away? I feel horrible.”

“You’re allowed to be upset,” Hayley says lightly. 

“I’m not upset,” Patrick protests.

Patiently, Hayley prods, “You’re not throwing your life away at all. It’s a next step. This is your actual college graduation.” 

Patrick makes a disbelieving noise and ponders aloud, “I think I just like him because he lets me borrow his car. I’ve never had a car. It makes him seem like he has money.”

“We’re still on this?” Hayley asks. “He does have money. That isn’t what this is about though.” 

Patrick sighs and rolls his head across the carpet and tries not to think about lying across Pete’s lap on this very carpet, sweating and high and sexually blissed. “It’s like a bad Taylor Swift song,” he muses. 

Hayley seems intent on changing the subject. She laughs. “All Taylor Swift songs are more or less bad. What are you doing with your apartment?”

“Subletting it until the lease runs out,” Patrick replies. “It’s not a great solution but it works.”

They have one more drink, curled into the arms of the couch on opposite ends. Hayley’s boyfriend comes to pick her up soon after, and later, Patrick paws through the box of items for donation and pulls out the tiny sea turtle. He gently wraps it in tissue paper and tucks it carefully into one of the boxes to be shipped.  


“There’s nothing in my apartment,” Patrick says later. They’re talking through video chat, and Patrick lies in his underwear across the couch with his ankles crossed above his knees. “It’s so weird.” 

“Let me see,” Pete insists. 

Patrick flips the camera around on his phone and tells him, “I have a little bit left but not much. It doesn’t feel like my place anymore. It’s kind of fun, actually.”

♥

Gabe’s house is located on the west side of the island. This is a fact that makes the beach house perfect for watching sunsets but makes sunrises notoriously difficult to catch. Pete tells him in the car the night before that he wants to see both in one day. 

“You can do that any day,” Patrick informs him drily. He reaches for the air conditioning and Pete swats his hand away with faux irritation. 

Pete replies, “Not with you, I can’t,” and Patrick admits, resigned, that Pete makes an excellent point. “I’m making you get up with me tomorrow.” 

The morning is early. Too early, and vulnerable, and Pete pries Patrick’s arms from his neck and shakes him gently awake. Patrick awakes to Pete’s eyes inches from his own, and Pete says, “If you get up right now, we’ll have time to get coffee.” 

Patrick makes a small unconcerned noise and buries his face in a sky blue pillowcase. 

“You know when your friends graduate high school and it feels like an act of betrayal?” Pete asks, much too awake for the early hours of the morning. He teases, “You’re going to leave, and you’re going to break my heart.” His thumb glides easily over the soft skin of Patrick’s hip, catching the light bruise from Patrick’s collision with the car door the previous day. Patrick debates whether to shift away from Pete’s hand or press into it and instead decides that Pete’s mouth looks exquisitely kissable. 

“I think you’ll manage,” Patrick replies, thick and coated with sleep. He shifts against the mattress and finds his chest pressed to Pete’s side. Pete’s hand slides to the curve of Patrick’s ass and Patrick makes a small self-satisfied noise. 

“You’re wrong,” Pete retorts. “I’ll die.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes through a half-smile. Pete laughs with his face in his forearm before he rolls over to meet Patrick’s mouth in an open-mouthed kiss. 

“Come on,” Pete insists, his mouth pressed to Patrick’s ear. His breath is hot and tickling the inside of Patrick’s ear, and Patrick twitches and makes a protesting noise. Pete tells him, “I’m getting up.”

Patrick throws his arm across Pete’s chest and grabs at his arm. He sighs and mumbles, half-awake, “How can getting up be any better than this?” 

Patrick, Pete thinks, has a point, that lying naked and sprawled across each other in mostly clean bedsheets, is as close to heaven as he can reasonably remember being. Pete makes a small considering noise and guides, “Get up and I’ll buy you a coffee.” Patrick tightens his grip around Pete’s bicep and Pete nudges him in the ribs. “If you get up any later, we won’t have time.”

“Fuck coffee.”

Pete wrestles Patrick’s fingers from his arm as gently as possible and is unfortunately reminded of the way Patrick clings to him in bed, desperate and slightly sweaty with his fingers in a vice grip in the sheets, around Pete’s shoulders, in Pete’s hair. He bites at Patrick’s ear and insists again, “Get dressed.”

“Carry me to the car,” Patrick whispers. 

Pete rips the blankets off of him eventually, and Patrick makes a long noise of protest and dresses in a t-shirt and sweatpants before he wanders into the master bathroom and blinks at Pete, sitting on the bathroom counter and brushing his teeth. 

“This better be the best fucking sunrise I’ve seen in my life,” Patrick gripes. 

Pete does carry him to the car, hiking Patrick’s thighs over each of his hips while Patrick hangs on his neck, and stumbling down the hallway and the two steps from the front doorway to the gravel driveway, Patrick kisses his hairline and softly says, “I forgot my blanket inside.” 

“Do I have to go get it for you?” 

“Yes.” 

Patrick laughs when Pete awkwardly deposits him in the front seat of the car, lightly refusing to let go, and watches Pete sprint back inside for the beach blanket. Patrick naps in the car and Pete nudges him awake for a second time in the parking lot of the coffee shop and asks, “What do you want?” 

Patrick yawns. “I just want a coffee. It’s too early to eat.” 

“What about for later?” 

“I told you,” Patrick says, and rubs at his eyelids. “Just a coffee.”

Pete stares at him for a moment, considering, before he shrugs and says, “Okay.” 

It’s growing lighter outside, and Patrick forces his eyes open and makes a conscious decision to spend the rest of the day awake. 

Pete opens the driver’s side door and throws a paper bag into Patrick’s lap. “I bought you something anyway,” Pete tells him, “And your coffee, as requested.”

Patrick peers in the bag and makes a satisfied noise. It’s a chocolate donut, coated in powdered sugar, and Patrick says, “Good choice.” 

“Do I have your endorsement?” 

Patrick gives him a considerable amount of side-eye before he sticks two fingers to the roof of his mouth and sucks, cheeks hollowing and exposing sharp cheekbones. 

“Hey, come on,” Pete laughs. “Don’t do that.” 

Patrick gives a self-satisfied moan and rolls his eyes before he swipes his fingers into the inside of his cheek, and Pete grabs his elbow. 

_We’re in that Chevrolet from July to July,_

_Gonna see it all before he says goodbye,_

_Every man deserves to see the sunrise. —_ Every Man Gets His Wish

It’s colder than expected at the beach, windy and damp. Pete throws his shoes in the backseat of the car and walks down the gentle slope towards the water. 

Patrick follows closely behind him and notes, “Sand’s wet.” 

Pete throws himself to the damp sand with coffee and paper bag in hand. “It’s not bad,” he replies. “Really, just put your blanket down. Give me your coffee.” 

“I secretly hate the beach,” Patrick sighs. 

Patrick hands him the coffee carefully, one hand emerging from under the blanket he’s wrapped around himself, and Pete takes it from him and smooths the extra towel out in the sand. Patrick curls himself into Pete’s lap with his head on Pete’s thigh, the blanket pulled around his shoulders. The beach blanket is really intended for more than one person to lay on, and Pete manages to pull part of it over his knees. He presses his cup of coffee into the sand and drags his fingers through Patrick’s mop of hair. It’s a boring, beige color but it’s not unlike the color of the sand. 

The warm colors of the early morning are barely visible over the water, so Pete takes his time watching Patrick watch the water instead. Patrick lies unnaturally still, to the point where Pete considers asking if he’s awake, and instead asks suddenly, “At the end of _A Perfect Day for Bananafish,_ what did Seymour lose?” 

Patrick peels one eye open. “Salinger?” he asks, and Pete nods. “I don’t know, his mind?” 

Pete hums. “I think he couldn’t accept that he almost got it right.” 

Patrick shifts in his lap and grabs at his coffee in the sand. He says simply, “That story’s about pedophilia. It’s pointless to look for any meaning beyond that.” 

“Really? I read it the other day. I thought it was another war critique.” 

“Maybe you should read it again.” 

Patrick takes another sip of coffee, and Pete laughs. “My analysis still stands,” Pete says. “Almost sucks.” 

From his lap, Patrick peers up at him and gives him a soft smile. They lay silent for some time and Pete tries to ignore the tightness in his chest, the one that hadn’t been there yesterday. The entirety of the summer had been an awkward feeling but this is different, numb when he leaves it alone and itchy when he touches it.

They spend the day downtown, out for lunch and poking around in little shops, and end up behind Gabe’s house on the west side of the island to watch the sunset. It frames the day in a way that accentuates the passing of time and it makes something underneath Pete’s skin crawl. The sunset turns from yellow to pinks and purples and then to blues in a shorter amount of time than he had hoped, and Pete watches the colors fade from the sky and the colors melt into the dark vastness of the water and thinks without real sadness or elation that it’s just another day gone. Beside him, Patrick is quiet in the same way, and Pete looks between Patrick and the sky and says, “It’s pretty, you know?” 

“Yeah.”

Patrick pulls the blanket around his shoulders a little tighter and sighs to himself. The sand is wet and cold between his toes, stuck to his ankles and his knees, and Pete shifts against his shoulder and sighs. 

“Gorgeous,” Pete says after a minute. His voice carries the tone of being amused, and Patrick gives him a side-eyed look from his lap. “I have to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“Will you go swimming with me?” 

“Right now?”

“Yeah.” 

Patrick’s yes isn’t verbal. Instead, he rolls off of Pete’s lap with a defeated sigh and strips off his t-shirt with two hands over his head. Pete does an awful job as disguising his excitement, jumping up from the towel with a stifled grin.

The water is warm from the day’s sun even though the sky is quickly darkening and Pete submerges himself as soon as the water is deep enough and comes up sputtering. Patrick watches him from closer to the shore, waves up to his thighs, and Pete wipes saltwater from his eyes and yells, “Come on, you said you’d swim!” 

“I will,” Patrick calls back, wading deeper until he’s looking down at Pete floating in water chest-deep. Pete flips himself over and treads water, and Patrick avoids a wave and continues, “I’m not very good at this—swimming.”

“Doggy paddle?” Pete asks. 

“Yeah.” 

“I’ll watch you,” Pete offers and slowly and surely, Patrick sinks into the water up to his neck and paddles away from the shore. Pete follows him closely, barely kicking to keep up with Patrick’s slow and childish swimming. The day is still and the waves are small, so Pete swims ahead of him and says, “Go where you can’t stand up.” 

Patrick swims to him cautiously though he’s gaining confidence, and then there are two waves in a row, one a gentle undulation and the other stronger, and Patrick goes under with the second. He takes in a massive breath of air just before the wave overtakes them both, and for a moment Pete’s stomach lurches. The reflex is to grab for him, and Pete reaches through the water and grasps at nothing before he surfaces, and beside him, Patrick comes up spitting water and coughing. 

He’s smiling though, and Pete stares at him dumbly before Patrick says, “ ’S why I don’t go swimming.” 

“Do you want to go dry off?” Pete asks, and wonders if his heart rate will ever return to normal. 

“No,” Patrick breathes. He wipes beads of water from his undereyes and says, “I’m swimming now.” 

Patrick stays in the water, as promised, until it’s almost too dark to see and the beach as a public entity has been closed. The pads of his fingers are wrinkled, his hair feels dry, and he can feel his skin covered in salt. 

“Time to go in,” Pete tells him eventually. He shakes the water out of his hair, leaving dark hair stuck to the top of his ears and the back of his neck. 

It leaves Patrick a little winded if he’s honest; a little lovesick listening to Pete’s tired breaths and the incessant sound of the water on the sand. Patrick looks between Pete’s collar and Pete’s mouth, and waist-deep in ocean water, salty and gritty and filled with seaweed and floating particles, Patrick slides his fingers into the waistband of Pete’s swimming shorts and presses his thumbs to the dimples above Pete’s ass.

Patrick gives him the look— the soft, wide, fuck-me eyes that can’t be mistaken for anything else. “Race you to the shower.” 

“Or what?” 

“Or I’ll make the water too hot for you,” Patrick breathes. His thumbnail traces the lines of Pete’s spine. It’s itchy and Pete shoves him backwards against the water, laughing, before Patrick begins trudging towards the house.

“Maybe if you beat me I’ll blow you,” Pete calls after him, and Patrick doesn’t win but Pete blows him anyways. 

It pours the next morning, thundering and soft lightning in the morning light, and Pete blinks awake earlier than he had anticipated the previous night, likely awaked by the wind between the layers of glass in the window and the water against the side of the house. It rains in thick and heavy drops that pound the roof of the small house and leave divots in the sand by the beach, and Pete runs his fingers over the soft lines of Patrick’s collar and settles further into the sheets. The weather is wet and oppressive but the quiet of the bedroom is comfortable and crisp and for the time being; Pete gladly suffocates himself in white bedsheets and Patrick’s pale skin.

♥

As he’d promised at the beginning of the month, Pete buys him a drink at the end of the weekend. It’s a celebration and a congratulations, and it starts with one drink and ends with four. 

Patrick hangs on his neck, wide eyes and all teeth, and tells him, laughing, “I’m leaving. I’m leaving and I’m never coming back.”

Patrick seems to vibrate under his hands with youthful excitement and anticipation and the enthusiasm is contagious. Pete looks down at him and grins. “Hey, don’t say that.” 

“I don’t mean it,” Patrick drunkenly replies. “I’m just excited.” 

Pete shakes him lightly in his arms and prompts, “It’s perfect for you.” 

With an eye roll and a short laugh, Patrick says, “I’m so excited.” 

♥

Pete throws him a farewell party.  _A moving on party_ , Pete thinks and then shakes the thought away. Patrick’s _it’s not about you_ was supposed to be reassuring, but somehow hurt much more than Patrick had intended.  “It is about me, though,” Pete says aloud, in his empty apartment. 

Friends arrive soon after, food and alcohol in hand, and Pete welcomes them with a warm smile, distributes hugs, and plays the good host. Patrick pulls him onto the steps outside when he arrives, and brushes his mouth over Pete’s, teasing. Pete sets his teeth and hopes Patrick gets the message. 

Patrick blinks at him, slightly flustered, and, “You look good,” Pete says. 

“You always look good,” Patrick replies and kisses him again. Pete lets Patrick’s warm mouth slide over his, hates himself for how loudly his thoughts scream _do it again_ , and swallows the bad taste it leaves in his mouth.

“I’m just going to have a cigarette and I’ll be inside,” Patrick tells him. He reaches for his pocket and kisses the underside of Pete’s chin. 

“Yeah,” Pete replies dumbly. “Yeah, whatever you want.” 

Pete flirts around the edges of the party and keeps a watchful eye on Patrick from the background. Patrick says his goodbyes to friends like they’ll be seeing each other in a week, not like he’s moving a nine-hour flight away. They ask if he’s excited and tell him they’re excited for him, and Pete is suddenly irritated on Patrick’s behalf. 

Pete thinks indignantly that they should act like they care more and then follows it by thinking that maybe he should care less and that absorbing his feelings and putting on a face of supportive enthusiasm is the correct response. If he tries, he can do both. Gabe catches him scowling from across the room and excuses himself from the conversation. Pete rolls his eyes, and then Gabe is grabbing him by the elbow and dragging him to the kitchen.

“Why did you do this if you’re just going to be miserable?” Gabe demands. 

Pete attempts to wrestle out of Gabe’s grip on his elbow and protests, “I’m fine.” His tone is betraying him, and Gabe narrows his eyes. 

“I’ll twist your arm,” Gabe informs him. “You need to loosen up just a little. Drink something.” 

“I’m trying to be nice.” 

“You’re being weird,” Gabe tells him. Pete scowls back at him and Gabe says with sudden realization, “You’re mad at him.” 

“I’m not _mad,_ ” Pete hisses. He feels like he’s pouting, like a child that didn’t get his way. _I’m being a brat_ , he thinks, and then says, “This fucking hurts _._ ” He sidesteps Gabe’s hand reaching for his shoulder and leaves the room with his teeth in the inside of his cheek.

The party seems to drag on for days, and now that it’d been pointed out to him, Pete feels thoroughly despondent. His food tastes like nothing, the chatter of guests is too loud, and Pete drowns misery with apathy. Gabe makes him a drink and Pete drowns that, too, and decides he can make dull small talk and pretend he’s happy for Patrick. It’s only all he’s been doing since the end of the summer.

“I’ll stay and help you clean up,” Gabe tells him, and Pete nods, glad not to be left alone for the night. 

From behind him, Patrick says, “I can stay, too. Let me help.” Pete’s lip twitches. 

When Pete shuts the door on the last guest, he heaves a sigh he hadn’t known he was holding in, and Gabe gives him a knowing look from where he’s digging garbage out from under the couch. 

Out of Patrick’s earshot, Pete says, “Most bummer party I’ve ever been to."

Gabe sighs. “You’re making him feel weird. You have a week and then you can be as awful as you want.” 

“I’m going to be so fucking awful,” Pete replies, trying for flippant and failing miserably. He twists short hair around his fingers and finishes, “In more ways than one.”

Gabe snickers inwardly and asks, “Have you ever cleaned your fucking house, dude?” 

Pete gives a dismissive grunt and wanders off to find Patrick. Pete finds him in the kitchen, bent over on the other side of the island, and, _He’s loading my fucking dishwasher,_ Pete thinks, panicked. _Like he lives here._

“Please let me do that,” Pete says sharply. “You can just put them in the sink.” 

“I’m almost done. It’s not a big deal.” Pete looks like he’s going to argue and then closes his mouth, and Patrick says, “Fine, I’ll let you do it later.” 

The tension between them is palpable and the silence is thick. Patrick is thinking, Pete can feel it, and it’s making him itchy under his skin. 

Gabe eventually asks if he’s done his part, and Pete tells him to leave and secretly Pete wants to kill him for leaving them together alone. 

Instead, he thanks Gabe for the help. Gabe gives Patrick a final bone-crushing embrace and Pete shoves him forcibly out the door with a promise to catch up later in the week. 

“Thank you for this,” Patrick says when Pete closes the door and turns around. Pete opens his mouth to interject, to lie and say, _it was nothing, really,_ but Patrick speaks before he does. “Seriously, this was perfect.” 

Pete’s chest burns. He fumbles through a catalogue of things to say, _I wish you hadn’t kissed me earlier_ , _can I kiss you right now,_ and _I think if you don’t fuck me again before you leave I might die_ , and instead comes out with, “Can I give you a ride home?” 

“If you want,” Patrick replies. The sense of finality is expanding, a palpable effect of the alcohol, and Patrick feels restless and a little reckless.

Patrick is not good at decision-making, or commitment, or anything that requires knowing what he wants. Patrick has never been sure of anything. He tip-toes around decisions until it’s too late and he hates options; however, with Pete in the driver’s seat, Patrick feels like life has direction. Patrick craves the security of ambiguity, but Patrick glances at Pete, sunglasses obscuring his eyes fixated on the road, and knows with a terrifying certainty that there’s no one else he wants under his skin.

In the short driveway of the apartment building, Pete turns off the transmission and leans back into the seat. 

Patrick stares out the window and says softly, “Thanks for driving me home.” His chest is tight enough to be painful, an unrelenting pressure around his ribs, and he struggles to keep his voice even. 

“What,” Pete says flatly. His voice is rigid, and Patrick drops his head against the window. “What, so this is it?” 

“Pete,” Patrick says. It’s emphatic and Pete shoves his sunglasses over his head and stares at him like he’ll never forgive him. It’s the first time Pete has looked at him coldly, like _that,_ and Patrick feels itchy. His face feels cold. 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Patrick continues, voice low. “I made the decision, I really think we just need some time—”

“You’re not replaceable.” Pete’s voice cracks. 

“Okay, then what can I do to make you feel better, because—”

Pete presses his mouth to Patrick’s softly. Patrick hesitates, hands hovering over Pete’s ribs before he kisses back. Pete kisses him delicately, and Patrick’s hands tremble with want. He’s hot under his shirt, even with the air conditioner on, and Pete burns under the pads of his fingers.

Patrick takes a shaky breath in through his nose, mouth still on Pete’s face, and says, “Kiss me like you mean it or I’m going inside.” 

Pete fumbles with the seatbelt awkwardly while Patrick smirks at him and then he’s leaning over the console, clutching a fistful of Patrick’s hair, biting at Patrick’s lower lip, and Patrick twists his hands in Pete’s shirt and simpers harder. He moans into Pete’s mouth, just for show, feels Pete’s teeth sink into his lip. 

“Patrick,” Pete says, breathless, and—

“You should come inside,” Patrick says immediately. Pete blinks at him, pupils dark under dark eyelashes, and pulls Patrick back to him. 

“God, yes, Gorgeous,” Pete whispers. 

Patrick does not remember this hour of his life. The last scene he can recall is Pete’s fingers popping the door handle of the car, and then Pete kisses him against the car door, in the stairwell, against the wall of the hallway, and in the doorframe of Patrick’s apartment while Patrick paws at the door handle. Patrick’s skin is feverish and Pete wrestles his shirt off as soon as the door is closed. 

“My room,” Patrick says, and Pete nods quickly. 

Patrick undresses in haste in the bedroom, abandoning his pants on the edge of the bed, but as he pushes at Pete’s chest, eyes locked with Pete’s, the bottom falls out from under him and the room slides forcefully into slow motion. 

“We should not be doing this,” Patrick laughs, eyes shining. Crouched over Pete’s body in his underwear, hair tickling Pete’s forehead, faces so close Patrick can feel Pete’s breath on his mouth, Patrick cannot think of anywhere in the world he would rather be.

“Stop me if you want to,” Pete says breathlessly, as if they aren’t far past the point of no return. He’s painfully hard with anticipation in his jeans, an involuntary response in Patrick’s proximity, and when Patrick presses their foreheads together and kisses him, it’s pornographic. Patrick’s mouth is hot and filthy, any semblance of dexterity lost to the sheer enjoyment of being with each other, and Pete is drowning in it, hands sliding under Patrick’s waistband, up his back. Patrick presses back into his hands, his tongue still in Pete’s mouth, and reaches down to palm Pete’s cock through his jeans, reveling in how Pete’s kisses become less accurate, more desperate. Patrick laughs into his mouth and Pete responds with a groan, hands still wandering over Patrick’s bare skin. 

“How are you still wearing underwear?” Pete slurs incredulously and feels Patrick’s vaunting grin against his mouth. 

“Don’t know,” he starts before Pete shoves him backward.

“I’m usually better at getting you naked,” Pete says, breathless, and Patrick laughs. He makes a show of wriggling out of his shorts, grinds his ass into the sheets, and laughs blissfully before Pete has his hands on him again, pushing him back down on the mattress. Any discomfort Patrick feels about Pete admiring his naked body is quickly dismissed, lost to incoherent thoughts, when Pete climbs on top of him, hands in Patrick’s hair and kisses him for the thousandth time in a day. 

Patrick tastes Pete on his tongue, the tease of vampiric teeth, and wonders why they haven’t been doing this all along. Pete sighs and Patrick makes a small noise and says, “This could have been my party and I would have been perfectly happy.” 

Pete bites him. “Did you want me to invite people to that too?” 

Patrick laughs. “Jesus fucking Christ.” His tongue to Pete’s neck, Patrick inhales audibly and murmurs, “Fuck me hot,” and Pete does.

It’s theirs, and you can’t have it.

In the aftermath, Pete holds his hands to Patrick’s chest, kisses his ears, and whispers, “So fucking gorgeous,” and, “Everything I’ve ever wanted.” He thumbs over a nipple and Patrick smolders.

He can feel himself exchanging body heat with Pete through the press of their legs together and Pete’s flesh under the tips of Patrick’s fingers. Patrick says elegantly, “Fuck, me too.”

The post-orgasmic glow has Patrick high, higher than any weed he’s ever been offered and drunk on something much more potent than alcohol. Patrick’s fuck-drunk brain paints Pete luminescent, a buzzing, shining aura under Patrick’s hands and Patrick swallows thickly and kisses him again, swollen mouths sliding together, slick with spit and the remnants of lubricant. He lays his head on Pete’s heaving chest, ignoring their drying mess, and listens to Pete’s pounding heart. It’s deafening in his ears and his skin burns where Pete pushes his fingers through his tangled, sweaty hair and presses open-mouthed kisses his to his forehead. 

Patrick is probably agnostic by definition, mostly immune to the sexual shame that comes from growing up in the church, and he’s managed to escape the tangled grasps of Catholicism. He doesn’t consider himself religious, but lying on the bed in the apartment that won’t be his by next week, blankets and sheets shoved onto the floor, body tangled around Pete’s and gloriously naked, Patrick swears he experiences something spiritual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A Perfect Day for Bananafish](http://https://foresthillshs.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2016/9/7/48668131/Salinger%20-%20Bananafish.pdf) TW/CW: suicide


	11. In which Pete pukes outside the Pru.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it.”_ — Mikko Harvey

_August, Year III.II_

Pete buys them breakfast and Pete helps him pack boxes the next morning. The apartment looks devoid of life, stripped to bare bones, and there’s nothing in the fridge but the remains of a carton of milk and the leftovers that Patrick has been living off of for the past couple of days. The bedroom is the only room that hasn't yet succumbed to desolation.

While they’re still in bed, the later hours of the early morning, Patrick tells him, “I don’t have breakfast for you.” He props himself up against one of many pillows and scrubs the crust from his eyes. “Or breakfast for me, for that matter. Sorry.” 

Pete rolls to his stomach and glances over Patrick’s bare chest, the light bruise over his right nipple and the smattering of coarse hair there. “We can go out,” Pete replies simply.

“I need to finish packing.” Patrick slithers back between the sheets and shoves a pillow to the floor. 

Pete rips his gaze from Patrick’s chest and hums. “You can stay and pack and I’ll go pick something up. What’s the place near the Sinclair?” 

Patrick teases like it’s far, “You want to go _all the way_ to Harvard?” 

“No, I _want_ to buy you breakfast,” Pete snaps. “Please don’t make this any more difficult,” and Patrick finds it challenging to argue with that. 

Pete leaves him with a promise to get up, an agenda, and a kiss at the bedroom door. Patrick spends the few minutes after getting out of bed slinking between the bedroom and the bathroom with a toothbrush in his mouth before he tackles the remainder of his belongings. Patrick rips the rest of his clothes and some odds and ends out of his closet and throws them on the bed to fold and pack. He and Hayley had managed to either toss or donate the non-essentials and Patrick had found it easier than he’d thought to live on only what was left. It fits him well, he thinks, a step above minimalism. 

He finishes what he’s thrown on the bed relatively quickly, before Pete returns, and then he closes the empty space of the closet behind the slatted door and lies across the hardwood floor. The floor is cold and hard and Patrick wallows in the first real time he’s had alone in days and tries to remember how it feels to live completely alone. 

Though he’d offered, Pete feels some guilt for abandoning Patrick in the apartment to pack alone.He picks something closer than Harvard, and in line for coffee at Bourbon, Pete stares at the phone in his hands and dares someone to text him, call him, anything not to stand within a crowd of people and feel more alone than he has in two years. 

His phone buzzes. Pete jumps. The woman in line behind him takes an obvious step backward, away from the man clearly on the brink of mental instability. 

Gabe writes, _Are we going out later??_

And even though Pete wants to talk to someone, anyone, right now, he tells Gabe he’ll call later. He stumbles through a coffee and sandwich order and Gabe writes back, infinitely intuitive, _We don’t have to go out. Just come over._

Pete sighs. 

They eat with ankles tangled in the center of Patrick’s couch. It’s one of only three things left in the living room, the others being the heavy wooden coffee table and a floor rug. Sonkie joins them once they’ve settled, her tiny paws silent on the carpet. She curls up between their legs silently and blinks round green eyes at Pete. They’re studious and a little distrustful and Pete stares back at her and says, “She knows something is up.”

“It’s you,” Patrick tells him, and laughs. “She never comes out when people are here. She thinks you have weird energy.” 

“No, she doesn’t,” Pete replies petulantly. “She’s getting ready for her big move.” They’re silent for a moment, and Pete says, “I can’t believe you’re bringing the cat with you.” 

“I have to, she’s—” Patrick starts. 

“She’s what? Your best friend?” 

Patrick frowns. “No.” 

Patrick doesn’t want to talk about friends, or almost friends. He doesn’t want to meet Pete’s wide beer-bottle eyes and answer questions about ambiguity or commitment, even over something as seemingly trivial as a cat. Pete seems oblivious to this, and asks, “Are you doing anything with Hayley before you leave?” 

It breaks the silence and Patrick’s head snaps up awkwardly from where he’s studying his breakfast to stare at him. Over his coffee, Pete watches Patrick’s small frown, and Patrick answers gingerly, “No, we just— we had a night earlier this week. Just dinner in the North End, it was fun.” Pete nods but doesn’t reply, and Patrick blurts out, “She’s bringing me to the airport.” 

“Oh,” Pete squeaks. “That’s nice of her.” 

“Pete,” Patrick starts. “Let’s not, really.” 

Pete quickly shakes his head and changes the subject. Gesturing to the ends of Patrick’s breakfast, he asks, “Are you done?”

Patrick drops the rest of his sandwich to his lap and sighs. “Um, yeah. I need to move some boxes from my room. They just need to go near the door.” 

Patrick shows him the boxes in the bedroom. Pete asks blankly, “Is this everything?”

Patrick nods and echoes, “Yeah, it just needs to be moved to the door.”

“I can move them for you,” Pete tells him. It’s flat and unfeeling and Patrick gives him an open-mouthed look of concern before he nods again, quickly.

Patrick throws the remains of his belongings into the tops of boxes and Pete runs them to the door, a smooth line of motion that makes the activity move more quickly than Patrick had anticipated. There’s a slight altercation over the orientation of stacking boxes (“It can’t go on top, it’s too heavy,” Patrick tells him, and when Pete drops it to the floor, Patrick snaps, “That’s not fucking helpful.”), but otherwise, the rest of the morning passes seamlessly. 

“Do you have to bring them anywhere?” Pete asks. The box shifts in his arms, totters, and Patrick reaches for it blindly. “It’s fine,” Pete assures him shortly. “I’ve got it.” 

“No, someone’s coming to pick it up,” Patrick tells him, and by noon, Patrick stands in the doorway of his empty bedroom and declares, “I think that’s it.” 

Pete gives him a tight smile and Pete holds him in the doorway, pulls Patrick’s face to his chest and stacks his chin on top of Patrick’s head. Patrick folds his arms around Pete’s chest. The air in the apartment is dry from the air conditioning but Patrick’s eyes are wet, bleeding into Pete’s soft t-shirt and he can feel Pete’s heartbeat against his shoulder. Patrick blinks tears into Pete’s skin and reminds himself of Hayley’s latest death mediation— that even the strongest partnerships and the most intense feelings are temporary, be it ecstasy or despondency. 

In simpler terms, there are good tears and there are bad tears and Patrick isn’t sure which he’s feeling now.

“I don’t want you to go,” Patrick fusses, and doesn’t think to find it blatantly hypocritical. Pete’s hands tighten in his shirt. 

“I’ll call you on your birthday if you’re lucky,” Pete jokes, and Patrick laughs wetly. Pete’s voice is thick and his heart a heavy thud, and he sighs and tells him, “No, I’m going to miss you.”

“I know.” 

“I’m going to think about you every day.” 

“I know.” 

Pete takes a deep breath in, chest expanding against Patrick’s arms. He rolls his eyes to the ceiling and blinks before he says slowly,“And I know you don’t want to hear this right now but I have to tell you that I love you.” 

It is Patrick’s least favorite goodbye. It hurts like a knife between his ribs, twisting and ugly and nauseating, and Patrick would swear that the embrace lasts for hours. Patrick listens to Pete’s heart pound and feels him swallow against the top of his head and thinks that time has stopped, or if it hasn’t, there is nothing else in the world that could require his attention right now. 

“I know,” Patrick replies softly, “And I’m so sorry.”

“Call me when you get there. No, call me every day.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says thoughtlessly. “Yeah, of course.”

They don’t kiss; Pete grins the same stupid, dumbstruck, lovestruck smile he always wears as Patrick closes the door on him, and Patrick’s own heart shrivels up and dies.

♥

“Mama,” Pete says later in the evening, his elbows on the countertops, his face in his hands. “I think I’m going to come home for a couple of days.” 

“I’m not going to tell you no,” is his mother’s only response. Pete gives an awkward smile against the phone, knowing his mother can’t see. He tells Gabe he’s going MIA for the weekend and that he wants to go out when he gets back, and then he buys the first ticket he can find online. 

The plane ticket from Logan to O’Hare is stupid expensive, but Pete would have bought it twice.

_You just crack another beer and pretend that you're still here,_

_This is how to disappear. —_ How to Disappear 

The following afternoon, Pete leans against his mother’s laminate countertops, ankles crossed over one another, and picks at something stuck to the island with his thumbnail. “Hey,” he says. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever.” 

His sister’s voice comes through the receiver sweet and crystal clear. “I just put my girls to bed and sat down with a glass of wine, how’d you know when to call?” 

It’s been years since they’ve been face to face, but Pete can see her perfectly in his mind’s eye, sat back in her leather recliner with a share of red wine in one hand and her phone in the other, long dark hair piled on top of her head. 

“God loves me,” Pete replies easily. He decides whatever is stuck to the counters is a lost cause and picks at the label on a beer bottle instead. He then continues, “Hypothetically, if I was planning a trip to Europe in the next, say, six months, what’s the best time to come so I can see you?” 

“I’m flattered,” she drones, and then laughs. Pete grins, and Anna says, “Hypothetically, I have the week after New Year’s off. I’ll have to look at my calendar, which I’m not doing right now.” 

“Will you look now if I ask really nicely?” 

Anna makes a small noise, as if considering something, and says, “I’m done doing things for men tonight. I’ll do it tomorrow. Who’s here you’re so desperate to see? It’s not me.” 

“A friend.” 

“Doubt it,” she chides. “You have business— hot tip, don’t marry a weird European man.” 

“Why?” Pete asks. “Because they’ll leave you after two kids to pursue a passion for horse racing?” 

“ _God,_ I don’t want to talk about it!” 

“Goodnight,” Pete tells her through his smile. “I love you.” 

Pete spends the rest of the week watching John Hughes’ movies and drinking coffee out of aged mugs on his mother’s plush velvet couch.

_I’m celebrating my inner 17 yo girl_ , he texts Gabe. 

“Summer fling,” he tells his mother. She doesn’t bother asking if he’s lonely. 

_September, Year III_

The new apartment is small but bright. Patrick spends the afternoon unwrapping the packages shipped to the apartment and puts away the few clothes and dishes he still has. He has Gillian Welch and The Smithereens on vinyl and by the end of the evening, the apartment looks more like a home than it had earlier in the day and Patrick declares himself satisfied with his work. Excited, he takes a picture with his phone and sends it to Pete, who replies almost instantly, _looks great! Go buy a bottle of wine to celebrate!_

So he does. Patrick buys a pack of cigarettes with the bottle of wine and lights the first one on the balcony of the apartment later that night. It tastes like the last two years of secondary school, smoking in the alley next to his grandparents’ house with friends, trying desperately not to be caught, and it smells like his grandfather’s coats. It’s warm in his chest, like the little crush he’d had on his literature teacher, and between his fingers, like Pete’s hands interlocked in his. 

He sits outside until the sky is a silent black, even if there are lights and people in the alley below, and then he lights another cigarette and calls Hayley. 

“Are you nervous?” she asks. There’s background noise, the clink of dishes and a dry sizzle, and Hayley tells him, “I’m working on dinner.”

Patrick hums and reveals, “Very.” 

She laughs. “Don’t be, they’re going to love you.” A brief silence in which Patrick wallows in his anxiety, and Hayley asks, “Did you call Pete today?” 

“No,” Patrick answers shortly, though with no real indignation. He sighs and stares at his hands, fingering the cigarette. “I’m just going to give it a few days.” 

Again, Hayley is quiet for a moment. “Maybe you should play the game for a little while,” she says finally. “And don’t feel guilty; it will all work out if it’s meant to.” 

“Maybe,” Patrick says.

♥

When Pete gets back to Boston, they drink. Gabe lets himself into the apartment with a six-pack of Smutty in hand and they pre-game in Pete’s kitchen, just the two of them. Gabe has invited friends to meet them later, but for now, it’s just the duo and Pete is glad for it. 

It’s a drastic return to normalcy, cutting the last two years out of his life with the sharpest knife he can find and boxing them away to scrabble at later during phone calls and the occasional vacation. It swallows him whole and chews him up on the way back up. It’s worthless to pretend they’ll stay the same; they serve as victims of antithetic factors, and Pete thinks sourly that it is veritably better to have never known at all than to have “loved and lost,” despite Tennyson’s preachings. 

“I thought you weren’t letting me drink my feelings,” Pete notes. He gestures vaguely in Gabe’s direction with a glass in hand. 

Gabe touches their glasses together gently and says over the _clink_ of glass, “You were going to drink your feelings whether I was here or not here.” 

Pete rolls his eyes and thinks that even if Gabe is right, he didn’t have to point it out. 

“Cheers, dude,” he says instead. “The Patrick detox starts now.” 

Friday night, Pete vomits on the sidewalk outside the Boston Public Library, in front of the WGBH recording studio. The light from the LED broadcasting strip paints his paling face and the concrete a sickly blue and Pete gives Gabe a pathetic look from behind his hand, wiping at the corners of his eyes. Like coughing up phlegm while congested, it feels good, like purging the last two years and the lingering smell of Patrick’s cologne on the collar of his crewneck, and ignoring that he’s made plans to relapse in six months. 

Gabe tells him, “Oh, dude, we should have gone out alone.” 

Pete realizes he’s in dire need of a water when his mouth is almost too dry to say, “No, this is exactly what I needed, actually.” 

“Let’s get you a water, man, come on,” Gabe worries. “Let’s just go to CVS.” 

Saturday afternoon, Gabe drags him out for a real dinner and one drink, and Pete goes home to spend the rest of the weekend between his shower and sweating in his bedsheets, ripped from sleep by dreams he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t dwell on the anxiety until Monday, when Pete realizes soon after being awoken by his morning alarm that he’s unable to remember if the sun-spot on Patrick’s face is on the right or left cheek. It’s strangely disarming, and Pete stands in front of the bathroom mirror and tries to memorize every freckle and every tiny scar on his face until he’s late for work. The ordeal is consigned to oblivion by lunch.

He spends the rest of the week writing— or rewriting, rather. He rewrites the period of fresh loss after Aaron and Luca part ways within Manhattan’s Excelsior hotel with a new perspective, and when he’s done, he writes it again. The ending still works. He’s pleasantly surprised.

The next week, Pete picks up another client and spends the extra hours on the phone. It’s someone to talk to.

♥

Patrick quickly learns that the office does drinks the second Friday of the month. Nate tells him in passing when he gives Patrick his first real project— an album review for a show Nate has already been to— sometime in his second week. 

“Yes,” Patrick says immediately, and thinks it’s a good way to fraternize with co-workers and snuff a Friday night. Patrick asks, “Can you email the address to me?”

Nate laughs. “Dude, I’ll just give you my phone number.” He reaches for a scrap of paper on Patrick’s desk. He flips it over to check for spare marks, and notes before he scrawls his number across the sheet, “Oh, and don’t tell Vicky. ” 

“Patrick agrees blindly, “Yeah. Who’s coming?”

Nate takes a moment to think, pen postured over the scrap of paper. “Um— me, Joe, William— my friend Ryan, you, and whoever decides to show up.”

The pub is small in size but busy, common for a Friday night, and Patrick arrives twenty minutes late to find Nate and company at a square booth in the far corner. Nate gives him a welcoming wave and Patrick slumps into the end of the booth and says, “Sorry, I’m a bit late.”

“We should haze you,” Joe tells him drily. 

Patrick bites back, “We did enough of that in secondary school,” and the next hour melts away alongside two drinks and Joe’s hand on his shoulder. He lets Joe bully him about the high school hazing (“Very light,” Patrick insists) and has the first real introduction to local music he’s had since moving. It’s refreshing, and Patrick listens, fixated on the playful dynamics of the group, until he’s comfortable participating and until he feels the familiar pang of nicotine cravings. 

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Patrick tells the group. “I’m just going to have a cigarette.” He gestures over his shoulder at the door to an above-ground patio and gives a short smile. Nods from the table. 

The night is warm and humid but still less stuffy than the inside of the pub. There’s a number of people on the patio, a couple holding hands and a group of older men laughing together, and Patrick lets the door fall closed behind him and digs into his pocket for the small box. His search returns the box, but not a lighter, and Patrick sighs to himself. 

He looks around for someone to ask and meets William’s eyes across the stone. William has his hands cupped around the end of his cigarette, eyes dark, and he gives Patrick a small smile from behind his hands. 

“Penso scordare il accendino,” Patrick laments, hands fumbling in the pocket of his jeans. He puts the cigarette between his lips, scowling. _I think I forgot my lighter._

“Ah,” William says. “Usa.” He digs a silver Zippo out of his pocket and extends his hand to Patrick’s, lighter balanced between long fingers. Patrick takes it with a note of thanks. William’s hands linger slightly on his during the exchange and William surveys Patrick’s dark jeans and button-up and asks, “What are you smoking?”

Adorning the same black dress pants that he wears to the office, dressed down for the outing, William’s white shirt is clean and looks soft and his hair folds over his forehead in a way that Patrick can only think of as “casually sexy.” William crosses one ankle over the other and leans back against the railing surrounding the patio. He’s tall enough to sit atop the railing slightly and he peers over the edge of the patio and makes a face of disgust at the collection of cigarette butts littering the ground below.

A packet of Parliament Lights lies in William’s hand. Patrick feels a brief flush of embarrassment for the inexpensive box of MS in his back pocket. 

“Um,” Patrick starts. “Usually Marlboros, but they’re expensive here. Might try something new.”

William considers him carefully and asks, “Do you smoke menthols?”

Patrick shakes his head and says, “Not for a long time. Where’d you get the Parliaments?” 

William rattles the box and holds it out for Patrick to take. William trades the box for his lighter and says lightly, “Bought them the last time I was in Germany. I think that’s the last box— take two.” 

“Shit, thanks.” 

William watches Patrick slip the cigarette from the carton of Parliaments into his own with curious eyes. They’re silent for a moment and William pushes the wisps of hair from his forehead with slender fingers. He advises, “You should smoke menthols,” and Patrick is immediately reminded of Pete’s careful criticism of his habit. 

Smoking on the sidewalk with a cigarette in one hand and Pete’s hand entwined in the other, or smoking on Pete’s balcony while he showered (this was always the best), or meeting Pete’s disapproving gaze through the glass of the sliding door behind Gabe’s beach house. 

“All the things you can choose to smoke and all the ways you call kill yourself and that’s what you pick,” Pete notes, and Patrick shoves at him lightly, grinning.

“Don’t knock it until you try it,” Patrick snaps fondly. 

“Fuck, no.” 

Patrick lights the Parliament with one hand and arrives in the present moment in time to hear William say, “They’re better for you.”

“That’s just not true,” Patrick argues. “It might feel better.” 

William laughs. “Fuck, it was a suggestion. Take it or leave it.” 

“Yeah, it’s an idea.” Patrick smiles tightly, if only to himself, and says, “Didn’t used to smoke this much at home.” 

Patrick’s phone vibrates in his pocket, the same time as William asks around his cigarette, “What’s the vice where you’re from?”

“Oh, Boston,” Patrick notes. He hums. “Always beer, and a lot of it.” 

The realization seems to bloom across William’s face, starting between his eyes and growing. He grabs Patrick’s elbow, excited, and Patrick is laughing before he knows what is happening. 

“Oh, shit,” William exclaims, thrilled. “You’re going to teach me about beer. You have to, I only drink wine.” 

Patrick laughs again and agrees, “Sure.”

“No,” William insists. “You are, but look, I’ve got to go. Do you want my number?” 

Patrick swipes away the text from Pete before he gives William his phone. William squeezes his bicep when he returns Patrick’s phone and steps back inside to say his goodbyes. 

Patrick finishes the Parliament before he returns to the booth. It’s smooth and masculine and obviously expensive, and Patrick glances at the mess in the alleyway below and drops the butt in the ashtray by the door.

♥

They talk, and a lot considering their schedules and the time difference. 

“The people at work are nice enough,” he tells Pete on the phone later that night. It’s after midnight in Italy, and Patrick leans his lower back against the bathroom countertop, cold through his t-shirt, phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear. “We went to a bar close to work. It was nice.” There’s a brief silence, and Patricks says, “Tell me anything. I’m brushing my teeth.”

In Boston, it’s six in the evening. “I feel smaller,” Pete tells him. His phone lies next to his pillow. He strips out of his shirt to shower while sprawled across his bed.

Patrick makes a judgmental noise and through the phone, Pete can hear the soft buzz of Patrick’s electric toothbrush. Pete feels his chest twist. 

“Your apartment? Boston?” Patrick asks around the toothbrush. 

“No,” Pete replies. “Not really. _I_ feel smaller.” 

“Maybe the world just seems bigger,” Patrick debates, which, yes, but;

“No,” Pete reiterates. 

Patrick spits in the sink and says, “Sorry, love.” 

It sounds genuine, like Patrick understands, and Pete rolls his eyes to the ceiling and asks, “Meet anyone cute at the bar?” 

“Nessuno più carino di te. No one is prettier than you.”

“Damn,” Pete laments, and then admits, “I’m so fucking horny.” 

Standing in his tiny bathroom and thinking about ending the call to shower with no real intention of doing so,Patrick feels his eyebrows lower and his chest grow hot almost immediately. He sets the toothbrush in his hand down on the countertop silently and prompts, “Oh, yeah?” Pete makes a satisfied humming noise and Patrick hopes to sound even vaguely sexy when he asks, “What are you wearing right now?” 

Pete laughs and then groans, and Patrick crosses his fingers and squeezes his eyes shut and hopes desperately that Pete has a hand fisted around his hardening cock. “Just sweatpants?” Pete replies, like he’s not quite sure it’s the right answer. 

“You could be wearing nothing,” Patrick tries. 

Teasing, Pete tells him, “Yeah, but I’m not, I’m wearing sweatpants.” 

Another contented sigh through the phone and Patrick pulls his lower lip into his mouth and asks, “Can you see your dick? I want a picture.” His own cock is hard in his jeans, only starting to beg to be touched, and Patrick shifts his weight, hesitant to move into or away from any friction, and thoroughly ignores it. If he gets off on making himself wait, no one has to know. Pete stifles another long groan. Patrick’s cock throbs. 

“Oh my God,” Pete groans. “Keep talking.” 

“And you’ll send me a picture? ” 

“God, yes, just keep talking.” 

That’s all it takes, and Patrick vomits up, “I can’t stop thinking about your mouth. I can’t stop thinking about your cock.” He presses the heel of his hand against his cock and can’t manage to swallow the awkward moan that escapes from the back of his throat. He says breathless, “I want it. Tell me what you’re doing.” Silence, a pregnant pause, and Patrick blurts out, “If you told me what to do right now I’d do it.” 

“Oh,” Pete breathes and says what they’re both thinking. “That’s new.” 

His face is burning and he can’t imagine his stilted sexual confessions are arousing to anyone, and Patrick swallows the urge to hang up and asks cautiously, “Tell me what you want to do.” 

Another long groan from Pete, and it’s, “I want to fuck you, suck you off— I’m just jerking off, wishing you were — touching me, wish this was your mouth,” and Patrick can imagine it; he’s lived through drunken blowjobs and warm, sleepy sex in the morning and mutual masturbation. 

“Yeah,” Patrick whines. He drops his head to his forearms, resting on the counter, and lets his eyelids fall closed. “I want that.” Another silent beat and Patrick is starting to understand the game. “I want to come for you, want you to eat me out and then I want your cock, want you to fuck me until I come all over— just like — oh, like we always do, and—”

Pete interrupts him with,“Fuck, Gorgeous, yes. Are you touching yourself?” 

Patrick makes a keening, desperate noise and whimpers, “No.” 

“Do you want to?” 

Patrick chokes and, burning cheeks pressed to his forearm, mutters, “I will later.” He thinks for a moment as best he can and whines, bratty and breathless, “I want my picture, please.” 

“I will,” Pete breathes. “I’ll send it as soon as I’m done, I promise,” and then Pete makes a stifled grunt and a long moan, and Patrick thinks he can’t possibly be warmer, more embarrassed, or more aroused. His fingers ache to touch, scrabbling at the frictionless surface of the linoleum countertops, and he wants to see Pete come undone in front of him, face screwed up in odd expressions that could be pain or pleasure. 

“Please,” Patrick whines. There’s silence on the other end and Patrick swallows hard at the thought of Pete’s face post-orgasm, when he’s breathless and boneless and pliable. 

He shifts and gasps quietly and Pete murmurs, sweet even through the phone, “Hey, stay with me. I’ll send you the picture and you can go take care of yourself. I’ll call you tomorrow?” 

Patrick only hums, a fumbling awkward sound.

“Good night, Gorgeous,” Pete tells him softly. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Good night,” Patrick chokes out. 

Patrick lies supine on top of his bedsheets before he gets in the shower, jeans carelessly deposited on his bedroom floor but still in his t-shirt. He pulls the picture up on his phone, Pete’s hand shoved down the front of black sweatpants, fisted around his erection with the hint of dark hair and the stupid tattoo below his navel. Patrick looks it over with glossy eyes, unfocused and blinking before he flops backward against the mattress and reaches under his shirt to flick his thumbnail over a nipple, and then he’s coming over his stomach, his shirt, his hands.

_November, Year III_

By the first week of November, Patrick begins to follow the heartbeat of the magazine. The first week of the month is a scramble to finish edits and final details for the issue two months in advance, followed by a couple of days of dicking around the office before projects are assigned. This is the period in which socializing in the office occurs, and Tuesday afternoon, Patrick looks up from his desktop to find William standing over his desk expectantly. Patrick gives him a tight smile and says warmly, “Hey.” 

William touches the top of the desk gently and leans one hip against the corner. “Hey, do you want to get a drink with me later this week?” 

Patrick feels his mouth fall open, whether in surprise or in protest. He meets William’s eyes, full of genuine curiosity and authenticity, and Patrick gives him the most winning smile he can muster and replies, “Yeah, that sounds fun.” 

“Cool,” William replies, low and almost shy. “Saturday? I’ll text you a good spot?” 

Patrick grins. “Yeah, all sounds good.”

♥

Patrick fixes the collar of his shirt in his bedroom mirror Saturday evening. “Um—” he starts quietly. “I have a date in like an hour.” 

The confession makes him flinch inwardly. He anticipates the dismissive hum or the pointed blink that usually accompanies Pete’s dissatisfaction, but against all odds, Pete sounds genuinely excited for him.

“Fun,” Pete chirps, and then asks excitedly, “Wait, with who?” 

“Someone from work— not the one I work with.” 

“A real date?” Pete’s grin is evident even through the phone. 

“I don’t know. We’re just getting drinks,” Patrick tells him shortly. “Is that a date? He just like—asked me. We’ve talked a little.” 

Pete hums then, considering, and says, “That’s a date,” and Patrick can’t help the awkward laugh that spills over from his chest.

William meets him on the street corner in the next hour. It’s just getting dark, diffusive shadows on the streets and lights on in the windows, but instead of being foreboding, the dark hours feel well-intentioned.  William gives him a solicitous nod from the sidewalk, and Patrick feels underdressed. 

“I brought you something,” William tells him when Patrick approaches. He reaches into the interior pocket of his coat and produces a regular box. 

Patrick laughs. William gives him a lopsided smile and Patrick realizes with some fondness that it’s the first time he’s laughed like this since the move, real and warm and bubbling up from somewhere below his lungs. It feels good and most of Patrick’s nerves dissipate instantly. 

“Menthols,” Patrick announces, mostly to himself. “You bought me menthols.” 

“I didn’t forget,” William tells him lightly. He holds the box above his shoulder, just out of Patrick’s reach, and pointedly says, “My only condition is that I get to try one.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes. “I owe you one anyway. Thank you.” 

“Try one,” William prompts. He loops an elbow around the back of Patrick’s neck and tells him, “You’re going to make it up to me; tonight, we drink beer.” 

William gestures wildly into the street, and Patrick lights his cigarette with the same silver Zippo William had handed him a Friday night previous and grins.

William’s self-professed incompetence when it comes to beer had not been an understatement. William looks over the drink menu at a raised table in the bar and informs Patrick, “I don’t know what any of this is.”

Patrick peers over the top of William’s menu and thinks for a moment, reading upside-down.

“If you like dark coffee, try a porter. If you’re not into coffee, try, er—” Patrick looks over the list a second time and points halfway down the page. “You could try a blonde ale.” 

“I like coffee,” William says plainly. “What’s a blonde ale?” 

“It’s just a lighter beer,” Patrick answers. “It’s more subtle.” 

William echoes, “Subtle. I’ll order that then.”

“No,” Patrick explains. “Try a half before you commit. You only get the alcohol at first. You have to drink a bit before you’ll pick up on the flavor.”

“Yeah, but,” William points out dumbly, “If I don’t like it, you can drink it.” 

“Then get the porter,” Patrick argues. “I won’t drink the light shit.” 

William sets the drink list on the table pointedly and tells him with one eyebrow raised, “I’m getting both.”

William, despite Patrick’s well-meaning mockery, decides he’s pleased with the blonde ale, and halfway through dinner and Patrick’s second drink, William inquires, “How come you just packed up and moved?” Patrick laughs, a little taken aback and equally impressed with William’s confidence in asking. William backpedals, “I’m meddling; I’m sorry.” 

“No,” Patrick starts quickly. “Mostly because of the job, and— I don’t know, I needed a break. I lived here when I was younger.” 

“You needed a break, so you moved halfway across the world to work for a mid-grade music publication.” William aims for amusing, but the truth tugs at Patrick in a way he hadn’t expected. 

Patrick laughs again. It’s almost bitter. “Actually,” he starts pointedly, “It’s an upgrade. I used to work for a start-up.” 

“Yours?” 

“Fuck, no.”

William looks like he swallows a more personal question and asks, “Where did you live when you were younger?”

Patrick feels his shoulders soften when he sighs. He takes a sip of his drink and tells William about Foscarina and his grandparents. William tells him about growing up on the coast, and Patrick is jealous. 

“It’s a good place to grow up,” William concedes. “Full of tourists, though. Do you like the beach?” 

“Yes,” Patrick admits tentatively. 

William hands the waitress his credit card when they’re finished with dinner, matte black and a millimeter thick. She gives him soft eyes as she takes it and when she’s disappeared into the kitchen, Patrick grins over the cup of coffee William had ordered for him as a finisher and tells him, “You should ask her if she needs someone to walk her home.” 

“Yeah,” William replies casually. “I know, but can I walk you home instead?” 

Patrick rolls his eyes and hums and William walks him home at the end of the night with his forearm wrapped around Patrick’s waist and his coat thrown over the other.

“You know I go there all the time,” William admits, voice low, mouth close to Patrick’s ear, “But the company is never this pretty.”

Patrick laughs and glances at William out of the corner of his eye. It’s dark and his eyelashes are obscuring the view, but it’s clear enough to see that William’s eyes are fixed on his mouth. It might be the compliment or it might be the alcohol, but Patrick presses his tongue to the corner of his mouth and feels his heart rate quicken. 

Under the awning of his apartment building, Patrick touches William’s hip and tells him lightly, “Hey, I had fun. Thanks for this, thanks for dinner.” 

“I’ve been wanting to go out alone for a while,” William admits. “I’m glad we got to go, I had fun, too.” 

Patrick shifts nervously and gives him a small smile. There’s a growing tension between them, a thin line, and Patrick shifts again and tries to decide if he should act on it. “Drinks with everyone next week, right?” he asks eventually. William bites his lip and Patrick suddenly knows he wants William to kiss him. 

“Yeah, that’ll be good,” William replies, and then, “Hey, I know I told you that my last relationship was kind of like playing games, we messed around with each other a lot— and I could be wrong but I feel like that’s what happened here too, and—”  Patrick doesn’t tell him yes or no, or give any indication that William is correct or incorrect except a small smile. Patrick stares at him with eyes that are soft and bright, and William makes a considering face and continues, “I just— I don’t want to do that anymore. It’s not for me anymore; I’d rather be really honest. Can we be really honest?”

Patrick swallows thickly and manages, “Yeah.”

William takes a shaky inhale and says, “Okay, if I’m being really honest then I need to tell you that I really want to kiss you right now. Can I kiss you?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick says again.

William kisses him and Patrick’s heart pounds in his chest. He tastes like the cigarette and the coffee they’d shared after dinner, which Patrick finds strangely attractive, but still too intimate, almost grotesquely sexual. Teetering between caffeinated and exhausted after one and a half dates, Patrick’s not feeling overtly vulnerable. 

It’s awkward before he figures it out, and then it’s okay. 

“Are you okay?” William asks. 

Embarrassed, Patrick says, “Yeah, I’m just— I’m out of practice, I guess.”

“Stop thinking,” William says gently, and kisses him again. It’s anticipatory and softer and the taste of William’s mouth blooms sweeter on his tongue than before. 

“Okay,” is all Patrick can say. 

The first kiss high gets him through the next couple of hours, and he’s fully awake when Pete calls. He jumps when the phone vibrates on the counter and he considers letting it go to voicemail, if just to spend time soaking in the satisfaction of being kissed for the first time in months and spend a little less time missing Pete. 

His loyalty gets the best of him, though, and Patrick reaches for the phone with fingers outstretched from the other side of the counter. He swipes dumbly at the screen and answers, “Hey, how are you?”

Pete ignores the greeting and instead prompts, “How was your date?” 

Patrick shrugs. “It was good. We just got drinks.” 

“Just drinks?” Pete laughs and corrects, “Not that it’s any of my business.” 

With an eye roll, Patrick takes a sip of his coffee and reassures him, “Yes, love, just drinks.” 

The endearment sinks in just the right way, and Pete drops his fork and salad on the counter and sighs, crackling through the phone. He jokes lightly, “I’ll tell you how big my dick is if you tell me everything about your boyfriend.”

Patrick snorts into his coffee. “No, I’ll tell you, I don’t want to know anything about your dick. Really, I’ve seen it.” 

On the other end of the phone, Pete laughs and Patrick’s chest warms at his mind’s image of Pete’s laugh, all eyes squinted shut and stupid smile. “Really?” Pete nudges, “Because last time—”

Patrick interrupts him and finishes, “And I didn’t say anything about a boyfriend.”

He wonders, in retrospect, how serious William is, after one real date and one hesitant kiss, and thinks that what he really wants is a weekend with Pete, if he wanted it. Pete finishes the thought for him, saying, “How many days until I get to see you?” 

“Forty,” Patrick replies, because he’s been counting down the days, too. 

“I think about you every day.”

“I know.”

“I miss you.” 

Patrick laughs because if he tries anything else he’ll cry. He asks, “Aren’t you going to see your sister, too? I haven’t heard much about that.”

“God,” Pete bemoans. “She’s making an itinerary. I told her I’m only in Paris for two days. She can act like she escaped the crazy when she moved but you can’t take the Wentz out of the girl.”

Patrick laughs, fumbling with one hand with the button on his collar. He teases, “Would you want to?”

_Try to catch it like every night_

_It escapes from my hands into moonlight_

_Every day is a lullaby_

_I hum it on the phone like every night —_ Happiness is a butterfly

The third and fourth weeks of the month, Patrick does work, long nights spent at his computer and an endless number of drafts passed back to him from various parts of the office. By the time the end of November arrives, the magazine is preparing for a Valentine’s Day issue, and Patrick writes pages on performance art piece Vistoso and a band defined by the fact that they lack a name. 

“How do you pronounce —?” Nate asks and points to a flyer printed with, _[]._ Patrick and Nate agree that both acts are insufferable.

After a shitty club act on the third Friday of the month, Nate packs his camera in his bag and tells Patrick, “William says you went out for drinks last weekend.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick admits. “We did; it was fun.” 

It’s proof that the new office is bigger than it had been in Boston, Hayley and the co-ops being the only people he talked to regularly, and Patrick thinks about it the rest of the week. He’s eating breakfast alone days later when his phone chimes on the counter. Patrick flips it over to find a message from William. 

_Can I see you this weekend?_

Patrick swallows hard around his spoon and replies, _Sure, Friday or Saturday?_

_Friday and can do movie at my place?_

_December, Year III_

After drinks the following Friday, Patrick follows William home from the pub. William’s apartment is nice in the sense that it is clean and bright, and tastefully decorated, and not that it appears to cost a significant amount of money. The kitchen has new appliances, however, and Patrick asks immediately, “Do you cook?” 

From the living room, William points the remote at the television, likely the nicest thing in the apartment, and answers, “Sometimes. It’s a hobby.” 

Patrick gives him a look of disbelief and William asks, oblivious, “Do you like horror?” 

Patrick rips his gaze from William’s stovetop and replies, “Movies? Maybe.” 

They settle on _Blade Runner,_ because William insists desperately that they must watch it after Patrick says he hasn’t seen it. William pours a glass of wine for each of them and Patrick throws his coat over the back of an empty armchair before he sinks into William’s couch, his shoulder in William’s chest. 

He’s content through the movie, William watches him closely during the good parts and Patrick admits when the credits roll that it’s worth the critical acclaim and cult following. 

“It’s good because they make you wait. Everything happens in the second half,” William explains, and Patrick is inclined to agree. 

“Ridley Scott makes you wait,” Patrick teases. He sets his wine glass on William’s glass-top coffee table and leans back against William’s shoulder to kiss him. It’s infinitely better than the kiss at Patrick’s door, exploratory and warm, and Patrick gives a contented hum and reaches up to fist a hand in the shorter hair behind William’s ear. 

William kisses him until the television turns blue, and then he fumbles with the remote until the room is dark and reaches for the hem of Patrick’s t-shirt. Patrick feels his face pale immediately. His hands fly to William’s wrists and William stills, frowning slightly against Patrick’s mouth.

“Sorry,” Patrick breathes. “I can’t right now. I just— I don’t want to jump into anything, I’m—” 

“Patrick,” William tells him softly. “It’s fine, we can go slow.” 

William’s eyes are wide and bright up close to his, youthful and green and almost naive, and Patrick has to laugh. It comes out breathy and awkward but William grins anyway.

His face still pressed close to William’s, Patrick blinks softly and whispers, “I don’t have to go home, let’s just— make out for a bit?” 

William hums in reply, and Patrick pulls William’s mouth to his with one hand wrapped around his chin. 


	12. In which there is a reuniting.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We were together. I forget the rest.”_ —Walt Whitman

_December, Year III.II_

“I promise,” Hayley insists. “Give yourself an hour together and you’ll know how you feel.” 

“What if it’s weird?” 

“What if it’s not?” Hayley replies. “If it is, you only have a weekend, and if it’s good, you also only have a weekend.” 

Patrick shrugs and picks at his lunch, grumbling. 

Hayley takes Patrick’s lack of rebuttal as an indication that the topic of conversation is over. She says lightly, “Oh, you’ll like this. Yesterday in TM practice the optional contemporary mantra was ‘I let go of my rules.’” 

Chewing, Patrick says, “I don’t get it.” 

“I’ll send you the reflection,” she promises. “It was about how following our everyday routine isn’t beneficial to our personal growth. We tell ourselves we can do some things and aren’t allowed to do other things but never think about why or if it’s even true.” 

Patrick makes a thoughtful noise before he agrees, “I guess.” 

_January, Year IV_

On the Monday following New Year’s, Pete sips on a Sancerre spritzer while curled into a lounge chair at Bar Lockwood, and despite being in Paris, sighs. The weather is cold and wet, much like the glass in his hands, but the bar is warm and comfortably intimate. Pete comments drily, “It took me fucking forever to get here.”

Across from him, Anna stacks her knees on top of each other and sets her glass of red wine on the dark-finished wooden table between them. They match in street style and in height, though she’s only gotten more charming with age, poised and slender and in conspicuous contrast with Pete’s broad shoulders and choppy winter haircut. She’s personable too, witty, and she shakes her tiny wristwatch from her hand and examines Pete through long eyelashes. 

“You look—“ she starts, and pushes her hair behind her ear, laughing. “Entirely the same.” 

Pete laughs, loud in the close space. “Is that true?” he asks, and notes at Anna’s dismissive smile and shrug, “See, this is why we need to see each other more often.”

She reaches for the share again with false impudence. “Yeah, but, I don’t get a lot of time off, and now I have the girls, so my free time is long dead— so is my social life, by the way.” 

“What’s the dating scene like?”

“Nonexistent.” 

Pete nods in nonchalant understanding and asks, “What’s your plans for this week?”   


She stares at him over the rim of the glass before she rolls her eyes and gives him a thorough forewarning about her lack of time to see friends or indulge in anything adult. “I love them,” she insists. “I really, really do, but I also live in Paris and I haven’t been to a club in seven years. Sometimes I need to, like, converse with another adult. Are you sensing my resentment yet?” The corners of Pete’s mouth twitch upwards and he nods deliberately. Anna says sharply, “That was a leading question. Why, what are you doing the rest of the week?” 

“Visiting a friend,” Pete replies, and grins. 

Anna rolls her eyes to the vaulted ceilings and stifles her own grin. She leans over the table and says lightly, “You’re awful at lying.” 

Pete shifts in the chair and sighs for the second time in an hour. “It’s complicated."

She raises her eyebrows. “Is it?” 

“No, but—” Pete takes a sip of his drink and makes a face into the carbonation. “It’s more fun to pretend that it is.” 

Anna meditates on the thought. She hums and says finally, “Okay, tell me.” Pete eyes her apprehensively. “I won’t tell Mom. She’s oblivious anyway.” 

“Jesus Christ.” Pete groans and scrubs at his eyes with the heel of one hand. “Yeah, just don’t tell Mom,” and so Pete exposes to his sister the circumstances of two years previous with a sweeping generalization of events and much less sentiment than required. It comes out like swinging at a wasp’s nest, and Pete finishes his drink before he finishes talking. He thinks he must sound insane, having not seen Anna in-person for years, but she absorbs it all with a listening ear. 

Anna gives him a moment to breathe and clicks her tongue before she says, “Okay, forget about the situation, pretend everything’s, er— idealistic. What’s it like to date each other?” 

Itchy under Anna’s gentle scrutiny, Pete replies, “Kind of like dating a Corvette, you know? It’s a little too much for you but you’re still having fun with it; can’t take it to parties because you’re afraid someone will steal it.” 

Anna grins, her toothy smile matching Pete’s and tells him, “Never date younger.” 

“I’m kidding,” Pete says. “He’s lovely.” 

Anna balances her chin on her closed fist and gives him a tight smile. She eyes him carefully, playfully, and quirks an eyebrow. “Tell me the bad.” 

“Smokes cigarettes. Keeps secrets. Has a temper, a little entitled. Acts like an only child,” Pete blurts out.

Anna’s face brightens into something like amazement. She glows against the leather couch and she says like it’s Hollywood gossip, “Ooh, I think you should keep this one,” and then, “Oh, wait, show me pictures.” She throws her hair over her shoulder and jumps across the small space between them, her leg over the arm of Pete’s chair. 

Anna swipes through pictures on Pete’s phone with unbridled enthusiasm and eventually exclaims, “Maybe you should move to Europe.” 

“No.” 

“Oh, but you would like it; you’re like, so worldly, so cultured. You read Zora Neale Hurston and _A Farewell to Arms_ junior year of high school and spent your next five years up to your eyebrows in fuck-knows.” 

Pete starts to protest and Anna finishes, “I have dirt on you that you don’t even remember. I lied for you, and to mom, too, which, you say he acts like an only child when you’re the biggest mama’s boy I’ve ever met.”

Pete laughs and shrugs and finally agrees, “Alright, I get it. What’s the plan for tomorrow?” ‘

“We can get out whenever,” Anna replies, skipping from one subject to the next deftly. “How was the flight? Not bad?” 

“Not bad at all,” Pete replies noncommittally, and Anna hands him the phone in return. 

Anna says, “I have the girls for the morning. We can do museums in the morning and the fun stuff at night.” Pete grins and Anna throws him a wink and says, “Oh, right, I forgot, you’re not shopping.” 

“I don’t even know what that means,” Pete tells her, rolling his eyes. 

♥

Patrick meets him off the plane mid-afternoon on Wednesday. He leaves the office early and takes the Metro to the airport station with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket and introspecting. Four months is nothing in the limitless expanse of recorded time, but something shifts between Patrick’s lungs and somehow his thoughts don’t seem as clear. The obsessive inclination at the back of his mind convinces him that Pete will look different, feel different, or taste different, but when Pete waves at him from the other side of the sidewalk, one bag slung over his shoulder aimlessly and the other clutched in his fist, and wearing the same concerned face he always does anywhere outside his apartment, Pete looks, as Anna says, entirely the same. 

Pete drops the bag on his shoulder to the sidewalk and wraps Patrick in a fumbling one-armed hug. “I’ve missed you,” he says by way of greeting and squeezes Patrick’s side with the pads of his fingers. He studies the slight upturn of Patrick’s mouth and tells him, “You look good. Like maybe you’ve gone outside some.” 

Patrick scoffs and shakes his head. “I haven’t, I swear.” He gestures to the bag on the sidewalk and Pete hands him the duffel wordlessly. “I didn’t make plans for us; you said your sister had that covered.” 

“I’m tired anyway. I think I overdid it yesterday, but—” Pete pulls a light grimace that quickly turns to laughter, and it fizzles in Patrick’s ears like seltzer water, or diet soda in a mixed drink. “I paused my inbox for the weekend. I’m all yours, baby.”

Patrick’s small smile is teasing and secretly self-satisfied. “Drop this off and get dinner?” he suggests. Pete nods and Patrick reaches for his phone. “Give me the address for the hotel.” 

Patrick waits on the street outside while Pete abandons his luggage upstairs, and over dinner, Pete tells him, “It’s so cold at home.” 

“That’s what Hayley’s been saying. She said it was too cold to go out for New Year’s.” 

Pete shifts in the small booth and nods, remembering. “We went out but I didn’t stay out that long; I went home and slept. You said you didn’t go out. You were texting me while I was getting ready to leave with Gabe.” 

“Um— William and Nate said I could go out with them, but I said I couldn’t go. I don’t know why I said that.” Patrick shakes his head and stabs at his dinner. “They invite me out all the time and I never want to say yes. I feel like I’m going to die alone.”

“No, you won’t,” Pete replies casually. “I’ll make sure of it.” 

Patrick snaps his chin up, expecting to meet Pete’s teasing eyes, but Pete is scrolling through messages on his phone.

“Anna and I went to the Arc de Triomphe and I took some pictures, I’ll show you. She also showed me this museum called the Mundolingua— you’d like it, it’s got all kinds of language stuff— and the girls are so fucking cute.” 

“Girls in Paris or your sister’s kids?” 

Patrick spends the rest of the dinner swiping through pictures on Pete’s phone, marveling in just how similar Pete and Anna look, even if Pete denies it limitlessly. Halfway through, Pete abandons his coat and his dinner and slides into the booth next to Patrick without warning, and Patrick swallows the uncomfortable familiarity on his tongue and wraps an arm around Pete’s waist, pulls Pete’s hips to his in the small space. Patrick listens with feigned interest as Pete rambles through pictures of Paris and his sister and his nieces and drinks in Pete’s familiar touch and the press of Pete’s thigh to his. 

Pete lets his dinner get cold on the other side of the table, and they stay long enough for the waitstaff to bring the cheque without being asked. Patrick reaches for the cheque and frowns at the total. 

Pete doesn’t look up from his phone. Instead, he touches Patrick’s wrist, fingers catching on Patrick’s cheap watch, and says, “Leave the cheque, Gorgeous, I’ll pick it up.” 

The nickname, out loud instead of through the phone, hits Patrick like a breeze block, heavy and unbending, and before he can be resentful, he’s crushed. Pete appears completely oblivious; he hands Patrick the phone and reaches for his wallet. 

“We can split it,” Patrick tries with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Pete shakes his head and folds his card into the cheque cover. “You can get it next time,” he says.

Patrick asks, “Are you sure?”

“No,” Pete replies, and Patrick finds himself wordless.  


Dinner is over sooner than expected, even with the repartee, and Patrick walks Pete back to the hotel with his thumbs looped through his belt loops, a casual boundary and a cursory reminder not to reach out and touch. His knees feel precarious and his hands are sweaty, and Patrick takes a shaky inhale through his nose and laughs at every one of Pete’s objectively bad jokes and does an appropriate job of impersonating normalcy. Pete tells him something about Gabe and Erin getting married, maybe, but Patrick doesn’t hear it, instead focused on how Pete’s mind skips tracks faster than Patrick can keep up, and how much brighter Pete seems in the dark as compared to the early afternoon. 

The hotel is tall and almost gaunt. Glass windows and a revolving door take up most of the hotel’s breadth of the sidewalk, and Patrick studies the narrow building behind Pete’s shoulders and thinks they are mismatched, not quite right. 

Pete wonders if Patrick is nervous, or at least feeling like the same skittish fascicle of nerves that he does. Patrick gives a tight smile and blinks and suddenly Pete can read his thoughts— a reluctance to leave the evening as it is but an apprehension to start anything that ends too quickly. Pete thinks of asking if he wants to stay, but it’s too easily interpreted and the relationship they have carefully balanced between phone calls, copious amounts of awkward sex over video chat, and now William, doesn’t leave Pete feeling confident, even if he’s aching for a fistful of the soft skin over Patrick’s hips in his hands and Patrick’s tongue in his mouth, on his neck, and the rest. 

Pete quirks one eyebrow and announces, “Too bad we can’t go clubbing.”

“We can go this weekend,” Patrick says lightly. "I’m sorry I have to work tomorrow. ” He stuffs his hands in his coat. Pete grins at him. Patrick’s fingers twitch in his pockets. “I told you I took Friday off, though.” 

“It’s nothing,” Pete tells him easily. “I’m going to explore. I’ll shop or something. I’ll just see you for dinner.” 

Patrick wants to kiss him on the street. He wants to drag Pete’s mouth to his and tangle his hands in the front of Pete’s denim button-up and mouth _just dinner?_ into the side of his neck. Patrick thinks he’d drop to his knees on the sidewalk if Pete asked, sunglasses balanced on the top of his head and burning under what’s left of the sunset. He hopes the tightness in his chest isn’t obvious when he twists his hands around the phone and wallet in his pockets and says, “Okay. I’ll see you for dinner, then.” 

“Have a good night, Gorgeous,” Pete tells him. He squeezes Patrick’s bicep and with that, disappears into the lobby of the hotel through revolving doors. 

Patrick smokes three menthols on the walk back to his apartment, one right after the other, and thinks that he’s officially hooked. Hooked on menthols, hooked on the adrenaline rush from doing something he shouldn’t, and hooked again on dark fingers around his body and penny-colored eyes.

The apartment door shuts behind him with a click and then Patrick is tripping over himself to throw his body decumbent across his bed and slip his phone from his pocket. Pressing the numbers on the screen is dumb luck fueled by muscle memory, and Hayley picks up on the first ring. 

She greets him carefully and Patrick blurts out, “I’m back from dinner with Pete.” 

Hayley seems to place her current doings on hold. “Okay?” 

“I don’t know.” 

Patrick considers himself upside-down in the mirror and thinks to himself that he needs a haircut, that he should have gotten a haircut before he went out with Pete, and then maybe he’d look more presentable, and— 

“I told you,” Hayley chides. “An hour and you’d know how you feel, so what’s the verdict?” 

“It was too much like a date. He paid the cheque. I should have known.”

“You’re acting like that’s a bad thing. If he had invited you back to his room, would you go?” 

Patrick pretends to think for a moment, as if the answer isn’t a resounding and glaring yes. He stares at himself in the mirror and says through a sigh, “Yes,” and means _without hesitation, absolutely._

“So what are we waiting for? It’s not that late.” 

“We?” Patrick asks, and then, “My apartment is disgusting.” 

“Remember how I was telling you that we make rules for ourselves because we don’t want to be told no? What’s the rule?” 

“That it’s socially unacceptable to have people over if you live like a bomb went off in your bedroom?” 

Hayley gives a soft laugh and replies, “So clean up. What’s the real rule?” 

She doesn’t give him an out, and Patrick rolls to his stomach and sighs. Patrick prods, “William?” 

Hayley is quiet for a moment and then makes a considering noise. “You went on one date,” she says, “And you tried to tell me it wasn’t a date.” 

Patrick tells her, “That’s not true. We went on two, and we could have hooked up.” 

“And you said no because—?” she prompts, and Patrick rolls his eyes to the ceiling and sighs for a second time. Hayley says softly, “There’s no expectations; you can just hang out.” 

Patrick makes a protesting noise and Hayley insists, “He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to see you.” Patrick can feel his own heart pound inside his chest from where it’s pressed against his forearm. “And do you want to spend your weekend wishing you called him Wednesday night?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick replies, considering. “Thank you, you’re the best; you’re keeping me sane.” 

“Yep,” she replies. “Have fun and make good choices.”

_No promises,_ Patrick thinks as he bids Hayley goodbye and goodnight, knowing that Hayley always sees more than she lets on. 

Patrick’s thumbs hover nervously over his phone and he wonders if it’d be better to call, and then thinks that Pete’s voice will only exacerbate the anxiety. He writes, _Should have asked if you wanted a drink after dinner. There will be blood is on netflix._

_Paul thomas anderson aimed for shakespearean and landed in the love child of Tim obrien and John green,_ Pete replies, to which Patrick rolls his eyes fondly and thinks, _how appropriate._

Patrick writes in return, _It’s #1 on Guli and Kozlovs list of objectively good movies on IMDB_

Pete replies twenty minutes later, long enough to make Patrick nervous, _be there in 20 minutes._

“Maybe I should vacuum,” Patrick says to himself, and then after glancing around his mess of an apartment, he decides there’s nothing to do but shove the worst of his mess in the laundry and wash as many dishes as he can in fifteen minutes. There’s some food in his cabinets, or enough for breakfast at least, he’s sure of it, and the bedroom will have to be what it is. Patrick piles his dirty clothes in the bottom of the closet and closes the door and even manages to finish the dishes and sweep the kitchen floor. 

Pete texts him when the driver drops him off on the sidewalk outside the apartment lobby, and Patrick takes the stairs two at a time with shaking hands. Pete stands in the corner of the apartment lobby with damp hair and his hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans, a split of red between his shoes, and Patrick can’t manage to stifle the smile that threatens to split his face in two. 

Whatever Pete tells him between the lobby and the door to his apartment sounds like television static, and the apartment door unlocks with a click, like taking the safety off of a handgun. Pete sets the case of wine on the cluttered counter and shrugs off his coat, and Patrick swallows the lump in his throat and manages, “I can pay for the car. I should have known— I should have just asked if you wanted to come over after dinner.” 

“Patrick,” Pete says, and kisses him. 

Patrick wonders how many first kisses they get to have. He wonders if Pete has played this feeling in his head a million times over the same way he has, and he wonders if there’s an expiration date on the feeling he gets when Pete takes his face in his hands and presses their mouths together, the warm feeling of being safe and a little spoiled. 

Pete usually asks if it’s okay, or if he’s okay, but he doesn’t this time and Patrick finds himself glad for it, because he doesn’t think he can manage to take his mouth off of Pete’s face or his hands off of Pete’s body and he definitely can’t tell if he’s okay or not, especially when Pete says pointedly, “I was promised _There Will Be Blood._ ”

Patrick doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says, “You’re wearing the cologne I like.” 

“Yeah, of course,” Pete breathes, and punctuates the thought by slipping his shirt over his shoulders and discarding it on the floor. It’s very Pete, and Patrick hasn’t seen this much skin in months, and much less skin that’s his to touch, his to cherish for the immediate future, and his to dig his fingernails into.

Patrick is surprised by just how quickly he’s blinking back tears, and like the answer to Pete’s _are you okay_? Patrick is unsure if his eyelashes are damp because he’s happy or sad, because he has this or because he lost this.

“Pete,” he asks when he manages a thought that isn’t just _yes_ or _Pete_ or an infinite number of exclamation marks in a row. “Can we—?” 

Pete makes a raw noise, high and ripped from below his lungs. “Gorgeous, you can have anything you want— anything.” 

“Okay,” is all Patrick manages to say before he’s pulling Pete’s mouth back to his and pressing his chest to Pete’s, soaking in the heat that bleeds through his shirt and everything he’s forgotten that he’s forgotten. 

“Okay,” Pete echoes, and asks, “Your room?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick mumbles, “And I’m sorry my apartment is so messy.” Pete kisses the corner of his mouth, tangles his fingers in the hem of Patrick’s shirt. Patrick’s nose bumps Pete’s face and Patrick stumbles out with, “My bedroom is messy, too, I just—”

“Patrick,” Pete insists. Patrick stares at him blankly and Pete laughs and asks, “Are you freaking out because you don’t want this, or are you just freaking out to freak out?” 

Patrick opens his mouth to protest and makes a small noise, then mumbles, “I’m just freaking out.”

“Okay.” Pete laughs and grins, watching Patrick swipe at the skin below his lower eyelashes with his thumbs. “That I can handle; I can handle the freaking out.” Patrick takes a short inhale ,and Pete asks again, “Your bedroom?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick whispers. He kisses Pete’s lower lip, tight, chaste even, and murmurs, “You should take my clothes off.”

“Yeah, that’s the idea.” 

Pete strips his jeans and underwear as soon as they fall together into bed and Patrick reaches for the buttons on his shirt before Pete shoves his hands away. Pete fumbles with the buttons with his mouth below Patrick’s ear, moving lower with each button undone, and Patrick willingly abandons the dexterity required to undo buttons and tangles his thumbs in Pete’s hair instead. Pete undoes the last button at the same time he works his tongue around a pink nipple, and Patrick arches into him, hot and excited and pliable. 

“Let me,” Patrick starts, and Patrick flings the shirt from his wrists to the floor and throws himself across the sheets. 

Pete sits back on his heels, toes tucked under the folds of sheets at the end of the bed. His eyes are dark and unfocused and he drinks in the image of Patrick across pale sheets and shakes his head lightly. 

Patrick fingers the sheets between his thumb and forefinger and swallows. He’s blushing, and Pete is staring at his cock, thick and dripping against his stomach, and he has butterflies like he’s eighteen years old again. 

Pete laughs and his eyes flash from molten to stormy. He traces a finger up the inside of Patrick’s leg from the bump on the inside of his ankle to the crease of his hip, and Patrick shivers and feels the cold beginnings of shame creep up the base of his spine.

“Stop thinking,” Pete tells him thickly, and it’s not the first time Patrick’s heard that in a month, but this time it works, or maybe it’s just that Patrick can’t be expected to have a thought about anything other than Pete’s mouth and Pete’s cock and the already sex-drunk look Pete is giving him. 

“I’m not.”

“I know. Stop,” Pete replies. His eyes are glazed over like he’s had two too many drinks and his tongue is stuck to the inside of his lip. 

“I’m not thinking.” Patrick reaches for him and wraps his fingers around Pete’s wrist. He tugs Pete back to his chest.

“Yeah, don’t,” Pete adds, and kisses the hollow between Patrick’s collarbones before he slides down Patrick’s chest and swirls his tongue around Patrick’s navel.

It should be gross and it shouldn’t feel like it does, but Patrick chokes on it, fingernails scraping over Pete’s flat shoulder blades. 

Later, Pete will stare at the streetlights below his bedroom on Pelham Terrace and deliberate what it means that falling into bed feels like driving with a new license at sixteen— being handed keys to the world and hoping that everyone else is jealous; it feels like a privilege and Pete still feels like maybe he’s not quite old enough for this.

Pete licks him again and Patrick makes a strangled noise; Patrick can feel Pete’s grin against his stomach, hot tongue, the sting of cuspate teeth. Pete kisses the soft skin of Patrick’s stomach where it folds and where it’s pulled taught across sharp hips, kisses the insides of his thighs, close to his cock but not close enough, and he kisses the round of Patrick’s ass and finally his mouth, soft and asking _is this okay?_ without giving any words at all.

It’s a kiss. They’ve had thousands probably, but Patrick tastes Pete on his tongue and wonders why they haven’t spent the entire day in bed. He’s quickly losing his grip on the material world, reality reduced to his own desperation for more and Pete’s calloused hands on his thighs, and any perception of the outside is dismissed when Pete wraps a hand around Patrick’s dick and asks breathlessly, “Can I suck you off?” 

“I’m—yeah,” Patrick manages, “But I really want you to fuck me.” He folds his forearms over Pete’s shoulders and kisses him again, tongue on the roof of Pete’s mouth.

“Do you have lube? Condoms?” Pete asks, voice already wrecked. 

“Yeah,” Patrick replies, too quickly. “Top drawer of my dresser.” Patrick watches Pete’s ass, the curve of his cock on his stomach when he slips off the bed in pursuit of lubricant, and grabs for him when he returns, dragging Pete back down to kiss him. 

Pete hands him the package and slides halfway down Patrick’s body, chests still pressed together and starting to sweat. Pete kisses over Patrick’s ribs, runs a thumb over a pink nipple, and smiles into Patrick’s skin when Patrick arches up into Pete’s hands. He smooths his hands over Patrick’s chest, tweaks the other nipple, and revels in Patrick’s soft _fuck_ above him.

Patrick lies blissfully outside his conscious mind as Pete lays kisses down his body, sweet but wet, Pete’s tongue leaves damp spots on Patrick’s skin that quickly become cold when Pete moves on. Pete tongues the crease of his hips, breathes in the scent of Patrick’s sweat and his pubic hair, hands on Patrick’s soft ass. Pete licks a burning stripe from Patrick’s cock up his stomach and Patrick throws his head back and laughs, fingers tangled in Pete’s hair and toes curling in the sheets. 

“Fuck,” Patrick says again, legs falling loosely around Pete’s shoulders. Pete’s breath is hot over his cock, and Patrick aches with anticipation when Pete tongues the head of his cock. Pete looks up at him with dark eyes, tongue flickering out to run over his lower lip, and Patrick glances at the ceiling to keep from coming right there. 

Pete swirls his tongue around the head of Patrick’s cock, the taste of pre-come and sweat blooming on the back of his tongue; Pete takes Patrick’s stunted movements in stride, dark eyes on Patrick’s mouth. Pete’s mouth is loose and wet around Patrick’s cock, and Pete strokes his balls with his thumb and presses a finger to Patrick’s hole, choking when Patrick makes a noise like he’s sobbing and pushes his hips to Pete’s mouth. Pete swallows around him and pulls off, wipes his mouth on his free hand. 

“Can I have—?” Pete asks dumbly. Patrick shoves the lubricant at him and Pete fumbles with the tube, finally getting the cap off and fingers slick, and Patrick breathes out a laughs when Pete looks at him expectedly. 

“Come on,” Patrick says, “I want this,” and Pete fits his mouth around Patrick again, fingers wet against Patrick’s back, the smooth shape of his ass. Pete slides his finger, slick with lube, into Patrick’s hole and Patrick shudders against him. He adds a second quickly, at Patrick’s request, and Patrick presses down into Pete’s hand, cock sliding out of Pete’s mouth, and breathes, “Fuck, Pete, you’re so good.”

Pete makes a keening noise around his dick, vibrations firing sparks up Patrick’s spine, and Patrick bucks into Pete’s mouth on instinct alone, hyperaware of Pete’s tongue around the head of his cock, and—

“Pete,” Patrick chokes.

Pete pulls off his cock with a slick noise that makes Patrick’s thighs tense. Fingers still knuckle deep in Patrick’s ass, he gives Patrick a questioning look and asks, “Should I—?” 

Patrick tugs gently on Pete’s hair. “No, just kiss me.” 

His teeth in Patrick’s lower lip, Pete twists his fingers. He feels Patrick tense up around him and grind down into his hand, and this is a game Pete knows how to play; he crooks his fingers again and feeling Patrick’s abdominals flutter under his hand.

“Touch yourself,” Pete whispers, breath hot in Patrick’s ear, and Patrick moans desperately, flushing. Pete laughs fiercely and insists,“Come on, missed this— I want to see.”

“Fuck,” Patrick grits out, and Pete is inclined to agree as Patrick takes both of their cocks together and pulls. Pete watches him with glossy eyes, Patrick’s arrhythmic motions and sudoric skin, and Patrick gets tired of showing off, he scrapes his thumbs over Pete’s ribs and asks lightly, “Fuck me?” 

Pete says, “Yeah.”

Pete fumbles with the condom wrapper with restless hands, and Patrick reaches to touch his wrist and stutters, “Wait, I don’t— can we not— I mean—” He flushes, a little embarrassed, and glances nervously between Pete’s shaking hands and round dark eyes. “It’s just one more fucking thing,” he explains. 

“Um, yeah, that’s— are you sure?” Pete replies. He blinks, swallows, and Patrick nods and pulls on Pete’s wrist. 

“Yeah, just— more lube,” and Pete gapes at him, a little dizzy and a little in love. 

Pete drops the condom like it’s blistering and reaches for the lubricant, and seconds later, Pete slides into him slowly, his palms across Patrick’s ass. Patrick trembles against him, moan building in the back of his throat, and if he’s honest, this is the part he likes most, the intrusive breach of his body and the first slide of Pete’s cock inside of him, feeling overwhelmingly full and impossibly, impossibly, close. 

Pete stares at him awestruck in the dim light, lips parted and face flushed, and breathes, “We can— God, we can go slow.” 

Pete holds him against the tousled sheets with strong hands on each of his hips and Patrick shifts beneath him. He rolls his hips in just the right way and makes a strangled noise and Pete tells him, “Fuck, not if you keep doing _that."_

Patrick can feel sweat dripping down his neck, the hollows of his collarbones, and Patrick throws his head back against the pillows, and spits out, voice wrecked, “No, not slow, like you own me.” 

Pete’s hands slide over his stomach, over pebbled nipples, and up the back of Patrick’s biceps before he takes Patrick’s hands in his and presses Patrick’s wrists together over his head. Patrick feels his eyelids flutter closed, his tongue slide over his lower lip, and then he’s telling Pete, “Someday,” with his thighs shaking where they’re wrapped around Pete’s thin waist and his hands fisted and trembling in Pete’s grasp, “Someday I’ll make you get me off and then fuck me.” 

_Someday,_ Patrick says, like it’s a promise, like they have all the time in the world to fuck and fight and share souls, like Pete isn’t going to slip back four-thousand miles to the city-turned-consulting firm that is Boston and become virtually a figment of Patrick’s active imagination. 

“You’d—” Pete chokes. 

His stomach brushes the head of Patrick’s cock. He’s overwhelmed already, burning hot and sensitive where he’s stretched around Pete’s cock, and the thought of Pete’s gentle hands on him while he’s overstimulated and spent is mind-numbing. “Oh my God, yes,” Patrick breathes, like a prayer, and then, “Please fuck me.” 

The first drag of Pete’s cock inside him comes with a massive wave of warmth and relief. It feels real, like they can’t back out now. Pete slides back into him with a shaky exhale and Patrick relaxes muscles he doesn’t remember having and absolutely melts. 

Despite Patrick’s request, Pete fucks him slow and deep at first, and Patrick matches his breathing to the drag of Pete’s cock in his body and starts to feel a little more like himself every time Pete fucks into him just the right way and Patrick feels his insides liquidize. Pete holds himself up by his elbows and kisses him softly, his fingers playfully tangled in Patrick’s hair, and Pete fucks him lazy and soft until Patrick’s gentle startled noises and shy whispers get a little louder and a little more demanding. 

Patrick presses his wrists against Pete’s hands pressing them back into the pillows and can’t help the way it makes him feel woozy, mind oozing out of his ears in the same way that the head of his dick oozes pre-come. “Pete,” Patrick cries, a strangled noise wrenched from the depths of his gut, and Patrick twists his thumbs in the sheets and whines.

“I know, sweetheart,” Pete tells him, soft and sweet and present. Patrick whines again, harder this time, and arches against him. “I know,” Pete echoes. He snaps his hips in just the right way, stomach brushing over Patrick’s cock, and Patrick gasps like he’s never been touched before. Pete’s face is damp and his hands are greasy with lube, and “God, Gorgeous, I’ve missed you.”

The back of Patrick’s mouth tastes like Pete and his hands are starting to ache from where Pete has stacked his wrists one on top of the other above his head, and Patrick comes with a sob and a strangled noise, Pete’s hips fit tight to the soft curve of his ass, writhing against the sheets and Pete’s hands. 

Pete douses him in an endless number of encouragements and tangles his fingers with Patrick’s, and Patrick squeezes his eyes closed and tells him, “Want this, make me feel it—” 

Pete is perfectly still when he comes— perfectly still except for his fingers twitching against Patrick’s and the thick movement of his Adam’s apple in his throat. Patrick digs his fingernails into the back of Pete’s hand and says quietly, “Pete, oh my God."

Pete presses him into the sheets in the fallout and they lie together in complete silence. Patrick lies chest to the ceiling and refuses to look at Pete’s damp mouth or flushed chest; instead, he swallows the hard feelings in the back of his throat and tries to soften his breathing. He rolls into Pete’s chest eventually. There’s tears threatening in the corners of his eyes, and they burn, hot and humiliating, and Patrick drops his forehead to Pete’s shoulder and and grins in lieu of crying, though he contemplates both.Pete rests his chin on the top of Patrick’s head, his nose to Patrick’s sweat-soaked hair, and runs his thumb against each of Patrick’s ribs. 

Pete smells different after sex, less like expensive cologne and more like sweat-sheened skin and _boy_ but _clean_. It feels like playing with God when Pete holds Patrick’s thighs to his under the covers and leaves soft kisses on his cowlick. Patrick presses his face to Pete’s armpit and absorbs it all. 

Patrick falls asleep eventually, wrapped in Pete’s arms and wordless with exhaustion. Next to him, Pete lies awake for hours, strokes Patrick’s back with soft fingers and rolls Patrick’s drying hair between his thumbs. Patrick sleeps with gentle inhales and long exhales and Pete tries to match his breath until he’s comatose. 

_God-damn, man child,_

_You fucked me so good that I almost said, "I love you.” —_ Norman fucking Rockwell

Pete pulls on a pair of boxers from Patrick’s bedroom floor the next morning, and they might be his and they might not be, and it doesn’t matter. It’s fairly early but Pete is still surprised that he’s slept this long. He pushes the covers off his chest, the heat an unfriendly reminder of how it feels to sleep with another warm body. Through the gap in the bedroom curtains, the morning looks sunny and Pete blinks against the light and checks on Patrick’s sleeping frame, and suddenly he gets it.

Face stone-still and hands pressed between his thighs, Patrick sleeps like the dead, Pete has learned over two years. He’s shoved the duvet to Pete’s side of the bed, obviously warm as well, and Pete’s never wanted to make anyone breakfast, more comfortable wielding a credit card, but Pete wants to make Patrick breakfast. It’s a new thought, and one he’s not comfortable meditating on for more than a fleeting second. He pushes the idea away with the justification that it’s crossing the boundaries of a one-night stand, and then feels guilty for thinking of Patrick that way. 

Patrick sighs in his sleep, shaking Pete from his stupor of admiration, and Pete swings his legs out of bed and pads to the window. He pulls back the curtains to meet a day that’s sunny and mild for the winter and the room is stuffy, so Pete cracks the window.

“Ugh,” Patrick bemoans. He scrubs at his face with open fists and sighs, “Come back to bed. Love, it’s too early.” 

Patrick pulls his bedsheets over his head and Pete lets the blinds fall closed behind him. 

“Did my alarm go off?” Patrick asks, muffled. 

“No,” Pete replies. 

Patrick groans. “Why’re you up?” 

Pete combs Patrick’s tangled hair with his fingers and laughs. “Because,” he says softly, “I need a shower and you need to go to work.” Patrick shifts on the bed, tucks his heels under his thighs, and reaches for Pete with arms outstretched. Pete asks, “How do you feel?” 

Pete holds him close, and Patrick exhales into his chest and replies simply, “Good.” There’s a brief moment of comfortable silence in which Pete squeezes Patrick’s shoulders, relaxing with an audible exhale, and Patrick admits, “Tired. A little messy, like I really need a shower and I really need a minute alone.” 

Pete laughs and presses his face to Patrick’s hairline. “I can shower now and leave you alone, and you can shower when I’m done.” 

Patrick peers up at him and thinks that he can be anywhere in the world and still be home. 

Pete leaves him still sitting in their nest of bedsheets to shower, and Patrick spends the next five minutes in bed commiserating with himself over opportunities lost and listening to the shower adjacent to his bedroom. He traces the barely visible floral pattern on his blue sheets and realizes that Pete is the only other person to use the shower since he moved in. 

He frowns for a moment, thinking, then pulls on sweatpants and shoves open the sticky sliding door to his balcony to mull over the realization with a cigarette. He finishes it before Pete can find him with it and retreats inside to wash off sweat and his own come from the night before and the clinging scent of cigarette smoke. 

Patrick makes the shower needlessly hot; the room is already humid from ten minutes before. He closes his eyes and presses his thumbs into the back of his neck where his muscles never seem to let go, and remains only acutely aware of Pete brushing his teeth and styling his hair on the other side of the shower curtain.

“Still going exploring today?” Patrick asks. Soapy hands in his hair, Patrick puts his face in the water and lets the stream sting his eyelids, drip off his chin. 

“Yes,” Pete replies. “Leaving right now. Kiss me before I go?” 

Patrick peels back the shower curtain and kisses him, wet hair dripping on the white tiled floor. It’s a gentle press of Patrick’s mouth to Pete’s, and Pete runs his thumb over Patrick’s cheekbone and asks softly, “Still want to meet me for dinner tonight?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick tells him, breathless. 

Pete admires himself in the mirror once more before he leaves, and then swipes his finger through Patrick’s gel stick deodorant and draws a heart on the mirror, and writes _Pete_ in the corner.

Patrick gets out of the shower a few minutes after he hears Pete slam the apartment door closed, soaking in the secure feeling of a man he loves in his apartment and the well-fucked feeling in his thighs. Pete slams the door with intent, obviously letting Patrick know he’s leaving, and Patrick turns off the water and stands naked and dripping in the humid air for a minute. He catches Pete’s name scrawled in the condensation on the mirror and announces to no one in particular, “I fucking love you.” 

Thursday night is less blithesome and more sentimental. Tired from the workweek and the emotional whiplash that accompanies unlimited access to Pete’s skin, Patrick agrees without hesitation when Pete suggests they spend the night in. 

“I spent all day out,” Pete explains. “And if it’s going to be busy, then —”

“No,” Patrick replies shortly. “I’m so good with just staying in, like, so good. Let’s not go out.”

Pete says, “We still have wine from last night.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick sighs. “That sounds good.”

So they order takeout, something quick and close as possible, and eat out of the plastic sprawled over Patrick’s floor. The apartment is too small for a living room, but there’s an open space between the kitchen and the hallway in which Patrick has managed to fit a couch and a small television. There’s a half-sized coffee table in the space as well, and Patrick balances his glass of wine on the corner and his takeout on the floor and says tiredly, “Nate asked me today if I wanted to go out Saturday— told him I already had plans with a friend.” 

Pete sighs and around his fork, asks, “Is William going?” 

Patrick’s shrug is telling and Pete decides bitterly that if he hears the word _friends_ again in that exact tone before he dies, it will still be too soon. Patrick mumbles, “I don’t know; I didn’t see him today. How was your day in the city?” 

“It was fun. I feel—” Pete rubs his palms together and makes a face of disgust. “Grimy. I need a shower.” 

Patrick lifts his head from his dinner long enough to inform him, “Give me five minutes and I’ll go with you.” 

Pete finishes his glass and presses the lid back onto his dinner. He leaves both on the coffee table and says absently, “Come when you’re ready.” 

Patrick sits in his tiny living space and finishes his takeout alone. He waits until he’s sure that Pete is in the shower before he drops the glasses and the empty containers in the sink and makes a mental note to wash them later. Patrick presses his knuckles to his eyes and yawns, then flips the lights in the kitchen and checks the bathroom door open with his hip. It sticks from the humidity and the doorknob has a trick, and Patrick thinks absently that it’s the little things that make him feel like a child, like he’s failed at growing up.

Patrick drops his shirt and boxer briefs to the tile floor of the bathroom and pulls back the shower curtain to find that Pete is dripping wet and fully hard. He steps over the raised edge of the tub and Pete wraps strong arms around Patrick’s chest and brings Patrick’s hips to his silently.

Patrick kisses him and feels a little like he might disintegrate under Pete’s palms, but Pete is hot and slick with water under his own hands, and Patrick reaches between them to wrap a hand gently around Pete’s erection, softer and hotter than the rest of his skin. 

Patrick touches him with delicate fingers, almost playful and much more exploratory than the previous night. Pete’s body is still almost as familiar as his own and feels like touching himself in reverse. He twists his thumbs and smooths pre-come over the head of Pete’s cock with his palm, occasionally takes his own cock in hand to feel Pete’s fingernails sink into the flesh over his hips, a little withholding. Pete’s tongue smooths over the nicks in Patrick’s lip. Patrick touches until he needs something more, be it Pete’s hands on him or Pete’s returned affirmations that he wants it just as desperately. 

“Pete,” Patrick whispers cautiously, almost a question. Pete’s thumb slides into the cleft of his ass and Patrick makes a noise he hadn’t known he was suppressing.

Pete’s only reply is a leading and weighted, “Gorgeous,” followed by blunt fingernails scraping the back of his thigh. Patrick slides a knee up the outside of Pete’s thigh until it frames Pete’s sharp hip, and Pete’s hands cup the round backs of his thighs immediately— like he’s been waiting for it, as if Patrick could have had this sooner if he’d thought to ask. 

Pete’s cock slides against his and Patrick knows the sigh he’s returned isn’t forged. 

“Can I?” Pete breathes finally, and Patrick nods enthusiastically. Pete hoists Patrick’s thighs to his hips with a practiced ability, and Patrick locks his knees around Pete’s waist, shoulders pressed to the wall and Pete’s hands on his ass.

Against Patrick’s neck, Pete mutters, “Hold yourself up, I know you can,” and strokes him off in time with the rise and fall of Patrick’s chest. Patrick’s fingers fumble for leverage against the wet tile, and it’s physically taxing; Patrick slides down the wall every time Pete twists his fingers, moves his thumb just like that, and Patrick makes a soft noise and presses himself further into Pete’s hand. 

His forehead pressed to Patrick’s, Pete exhales part of a laugh and sighs, “Fuck, I missed this,” and, “So good for me, God.”

“I’m gonna come,” Patrick tells him, blank.

“Yes, Gorgeous, whenever you want,” and Patrick comes finally on a hard inhale, thighs shaking. Pete lets him down slowly, waits until Patrick has both feet on the floor to let go completely, and Patrick drops to his knees in the water pooling in the bottom of the bathtub and takes Pete’s cock into his swollen mouth. He swallows, just once, and Pete comes with his eyes closed and his fingers threaded through Patrick’s wet hair. 

It’s cold when Pete reaches over his shoulder to turn the water off, and Patrick shivers in the bottom of the tub and waits for Pete to hand him a towel. 

“Come on,” Pete tells him softly. “Let’s just sleep.” 

They don’t sleep, though, and Pete lays himself across Patrick’s bed, sheets pulled up to his waist, and Patrick flops on top of the duvet on his chest and chews on the inside of his cheek. 

“I think I forgot how much this was gonna suck.” 

It could come from either of them, and Pete stifles a laugh and says, “I tried, like, I almost hooked up with this guy I talked to when I was out with Gabe, but like— it just wasn’t the same. I think I’m kind of over the hook-up thing.” 

Ankles crossed over his bare ass, Patrick rubs his duvet cover between his fingers and sniffs. Pete gives him a terse smile and Patrick shifts uneasily and tells him, “I haven’t really done anything with anyone since I moved. I think it’s just never been for me.” 

Pete laughs at him, softly, under his tongue. “William?” 

“Uh— I don’t know,” Patrick tries, and winces. Pete watches him at full attention and Patrick bites at his lip for a moment before he admits, “We’ve barely fooled around. It’s not that I don’t like him, it’s just—” 

He doesn’t finish the thought. Instead, he shrugs and stares into Pete’s half-lidded eyes, and Pete finishes for him, “You’re not ready.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick replies, impassive. “I’m not ready.” 

Pete holds his arms out wordlessly and Patrick throws himself against Pete’s chest and breathes in the scent of his own body wash on Pete’s skin and the remnants of Pete’s cologne. 

_But I don't get bored, I just see it through,_

_Why wait for the best when I could have you? —_ Norman fucking Rockwell

Patrick awakes in the earliest of Friday’s morning hours to Pete’s hand curled softly around his hip and Pete’s cock hard against his thigh and mostly-asleep, Patrick throws a leg over Pete’s hip. With soft fingers wrapped around his cock, Patrick brings them off with Pete’s palms on the backs of his thighs, barely conscious, soaked in sleep. It’s unfocused and childish and incomparable, and Patrick watches Pete come apart underneath him like a dream and falls back to sleep immediately afterward. 

It’s much later in the morning the next time he awakens, to his phone vibrating on the nightstand, and Patrick sits up in the sheets and says thickly, “I’m not answering that.”

Beside him, Pete shifts, his cheek to Patrick’s thigh. Patrick shoves his fingers through Pete’s hair, catching in the tangled ends. 

“What time is it?” Pete asks, voice rough and painted with sleep. He props himself up on his elbows and lets his eyes fall over Patrick’s chest. 

Patrick stretches his hands over his shoulders and yawns blissfully under Pete’s careful observation. “Don’t know,” Patrick says lightly. “Do you want something to eat?” 

Pete shrugs. “Do you?” 

Patrick cracks his neck and hums. “Yeah, but—” he says slowly, "It’s just that I’m like— so, so, naked, and it would really just _suck_ if no one were to do anything about it.” 

Pete hauls him backward into the pillows. Patrick grabs at him, a little demanding, and in contrast, Pete leaves light, teasing kisses over Patrick’s lower lip and then the upper, and Patrick digs his fingernails a little deeper into the flesh of Pete’s ass. It returns the desired effect, and Pete’s kisses turn from gentle to biting, teasing by a different definition.

Content, Patrick revels in the feeling of being with someone who knows just what he likes; Pete’s method of closing off the kiss with his teeth teasing at Patrick’s lower lip, slow and almost stinging, pulling away just long enough to suck in a gasping breath, not unlike a desperate prayer, and then his mouth is back on Patrick’s, lovely. 

“Can I tell you that I miss you,” Patrick whispers, almost like closing a deal. “And don’t tell anyone because—” Pete’s teeth find the curve of his lower lip and he sucks in a groan. “It’s a secret.” 

“Who am I going to tell?” Pete replies, teasing. 

Patrick laughs. “I don’t know, Gabe? Hayley? God, she already knows, the number of times I call her just to tell her that I—” Pete’s teeth in his lip again; Patrick’s breath skips. “— That I miss you; it’s pathetic, really.” 

Pete’s thumbs find the dimples on either side of his spine. Pete nudges, “How come I never hear about it?” 

“I miss you,” Patrick says, again. “And then I have plans. I didn’t take the day off for nothing.”

“Okay.” Pete rubs his thumb over Patrick’s protruding kneecap and looks between Patrick’s mouth and the soft curves of his body. He closes his eyes and Pete replies hesitantly, “But I want to talk about what you did the summer we met.” 

Patrick hums, and Pete watches him for a moment, the practice in which Patrick’s lower lip twitches in the same breath as his right eyebrow. His fingers work in the thin sheets as he rolls Pete’s intellect in the back of his mind. Patrick makes a thoughtful noise and asks carefully, “Do you want a coffee?” 

Pete laughs, his hands sliding to the inside of Patrick’s thigh under the bedsheets. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll have a coffee.” 

The far side of Patrick’s tiny kitchen is drenched in the light from the windows, turned peach-colored through voile curtains. Patrick flips the switch for the light over the stovetop and the other half the kitchen turns to gold. He blinks against the warm light, still too bright for the morning, and reaches for the coffee grounds in the nearest cabinet. 

Pete admires him from the other side of the counter, the pull of his thin t-shirt over broad shoulders and hair pressed in all directions at the back of his neck, consequent of sleep. 

“I can make a real breakfast in a bit,” Patrick tells him, still sleepy. 

“I haven’t eaten a real breakfast in weeks,” Pete replies around a yawn, with the emphasis on _real._ “I only eat cereal now, without you— three meals a day.” 

Patrick slides the cup across the resin countertop, diner-style, and raises an eyebrow. “Is that all you’ve been living off of? Sugar cereal? I was going to ask you if you’ve lost weight.” 

Pete shrugs. “Just been working a lot.” He returns Patrick’s challenging look with a blank stare. “Not just in the office. I’m changing some things in the book.” 

Over his coffee cup, Patrick notes, “You’re always changing something about the book.” 

“Yeah, well—” Pete starts, and stiffens. “It’s not really about finishing it. It’s about writing it, and anyway, you’re avoiding talking about this. You said it yourself hook-ups aren’t your thing.” 

Patrick places his own mug on the counter with an air of exasperation and rolls his eyes. Pete watches his hips shift from the right to the left. Patrick says, “They aren’t. I didn’t even have that many _hook-ups_ that summer, I don’t know why you think that.”

“Okay, but,” Pete counteracts, “More than normal for you.” 

Patrick shakes his head. “More than I ever did. It’s just, like, that we had been dating since sophomore year of college and then we dated five years and it’s not like I got nothing out of it but—” He makes a noncommittal noise and Pete raises an eyebrow. 

Patrick finishes, “Greta and I were never that close. I don’t want to do that again.” Pete gives him a quizzical look, and Patrick clarifies, “Like invest years into something that doesn’t work out. We already had a house and we already had a cat. The only thing left was, like, get married and have kids.”

“So then what?” 

Patrick shrugs. “So we broke up.” 

Pete stares at him, bewildered but not shocked. His mouth hangs open slightly and he twists his fingers around the handle of the coffee mug. Patrick doesn’t look up from his own breakfast. Pete closes his mouth and frowns before he says, “And you weren’t upset?”

“We were never in love with each other, it wasn’t like—” Pete’s eyes meet his and Patrick takes an abrupt sip of his coffee.“I was sad that I lost my house and my cat and like, the shared income, I guess. The actual break-up didn’t feel like a big loss.” Patrick laughs, reminiscent of the absurdity of the situation. “I’m never spending that long again doing something I don’t like. I’m giving shit two years, tops, then I’m fucking scrapping it.” 

“Funny,” Pete replies drily, and Patrick’s fingertips find the inside of his wrist across the countertop. Pete’s skin prickles under Patrick’s hands. Pete’s mouth twists. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Patrick says carefully. 

“Yeah.” Pete makes a soft noise with his tongue. “I guess I don’t get it.” 

Patrick tilts his head over the edge of his coffee like a listening dog. He asks, “Get what?” 

“It just seems so unlike you, and also just like you.” At Patrick’s prompting gesture, Pete continues, “Making a drastic change when things aren’t quite right.” 

“I don’t know,” Patrick replies simply. His eyebrows crease in what could be offense. He takes another sip of his coffee and the kitchen falls tersely silent. The coffee maker clicks.

Curious, Pete inquires, “Did she know that you were—?” 

“What?” Patrick interrupts. “Bi?” 

“Yeah.” 

Patrick shrugs stiffly. “Yeah, I guess. She knew that I liked this one guy, but— that’s just one guy, you know? We were dating so I guess it didn’t matter to her, and then I figured it out over the summer.” 

Pete watches him fondly and asks, “Who?” 

Patrick takes an awkward inhale and admits, “I don’t know, we had an internship together. We used to go out after work, and his girlfriend could play like, every instrument in the world. I thought I liked her, and then they broke up and I didn’t feel bad at all.” 

Pete laughs.

“I don’t even know if I knew I was bi. It never occurred to me. I just, like, missed that part,” Patrick finishes, and shakes his head, thinking. “Why am I telling you all of this?” 

“Because I asked.” Pete laughs under his breath and confirms, “Then you just got it out in one summer.” 

The corner of Patrick’s mouth quirks upward. “I mean— yeah. I knew people. It’s easier if you have a friend.”

“And did you have a friend?” 

“Friends from school,” Patrick tells him, “And it’s like, sometimes other people know it before you do.” 

“Yeah,” Pete replies. “Weird, isn’t it?” 

♥

“Clubbing?” Patrick asks later that night. He shoves his hands through his hair, painted with styling product, and then rakes it the other direction. He throws Pete a look of disdain and studies his hair. He declares it good enough and repeats, “Clubbing? Are we really going clubbing?” 

Pete crouches over the bag he’d moved from the hotel into Patrick’s bedroom earlier in the afternoon. It’s serving as his temporary wardrobe, a mess of tangled clothes piled into the top of the bag. Pete replies indignantly, “I don’t know. Bar-hopping? I don’t care.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick says, and paws through his bathroom drawer for a comb. “We can go to the other side of the city. I never get over there; I work too close.” 

From the bedroom, Pete asks, “Do you have a lint roller? Are we too old for clubbing?” 

“There’s no appropriate age for clubbing. You’re either too old or you’re too young.” 

“I guess. Lint roller?” 

_He holds me in his big arms_

_Drunk and I am seeing stars_

_This is all I think of—_ Video Games

Drunk on the sidewalk hours later and hopelessly infatuated, Patrick feels like the city looks: illuminated at night, safe and hospitable, and blood thin with alcohol, clutching at secrets and uncertainties that wear thin after years and years. He supposes it is like being high but more tangible. It’s the genre of delight that is remembered the morning after, even through the alcohol— the type that keeps him remembering how it feels to be tipsy and buzzed on adulation, even if he doesn’t remember the events of the night previous. 

“Shit,” Pete laughs as Patrick staggers into him. “Time to go home.” 

“Home?” Patrick badgers. “Home as in home, or home as in _home_ home?” 

Pete attributes the pitching feeling in his stomach up to a drunken reaction to Patrick’s collision with his hip. He asks, still grinning, “What?” 

Patrick doesn’t care to elaborate.

They catch an empty bus in the early morning hours, the limitless breadth of time between midnight and dawn, and Patrick sits with his calves thrown carelessly over Pete’s knees. He drapes an elbow around Pete’s neck and wordlessly dares Pete to kiss him.

Pete kisses him. Pete’s mouth finds his under the sterile white LEDs of the bus interior; Pete’s fingers slipped underneath the collar at the back of his t-shirt. Fingerprints catching on the threads in the tag of Patrick’s shirt and Patrick’s knees pressed to his, Pete docs to himself that there are fleeting moments in life that are indistinguishable from stereotypical cinema, and that this is one of them. Patrick’s mouth is encouraging, endlessly alluring, and tastes of salt and sweet alcohol; his eyes fall closed in anticipation when Pete’s hands curl around the back of his neck. 

Hands sliding down Pete’s forearm, over fine hair and the jump of muscles under his skin, Patrick tangles his fingers with Pete’s at the end. He sighs and says, “I want a picture of this.”

Under unflattering lights, Patrick’s skin appears thick and colorless. His eyes, however, are animated, even if unfocused in drunken indifference, and Pete blinks with their faces close enough to rub noses. Pete laughs, harsh on the empty bus, and slips his pinkie through the loop in the shirt tag. 

“You’d think a picture would ruin it,” Pete says. “You say some things are just for you.” 

Patrick kisses the corner of Pete’s mouth, slowly, and agrees, “They are.” 

“Hey,” Pete asks, breathless between kisses. “Is it just me or is this better than kissing your boyfriend?” 

“He’s not— he’s not really my boyfriend,” Patrick mutters; Pete’s hands down the back of his shirt, thumb tracing figures into the inside of Patrick’s wrist. 

“That’s not really an answer.” 

“Fuck you.”

“It’s better,” Pete says. Smug. 

“God, you’re awful,” Patrick whines, grinning. “You’re so fucking awful.” 

The bus lurches to a halt and Patrick grabs at him and laughs before he clambers to his feet on shaky ankles and drags himself off the bus and into his apartment building with Pete’s following closely behind.

Patrick stumbles into tiny entryway just inside his apartment door and hiccups, “We are not— we are not having sex right now; I’m way too fucking—” Pete squeezes his ribs, and Patrick laughs over a particularly obvious hiccup and shoves at Pete’s hands. “Too fucking drunk to do _anything,_ fuck!” 

Pete urges him towards the bedroom, catching on the corner of Patrick’s kitchen counter, the back of the couch, and the bedroom doorframe to catch Patrick’s mouth in his and breathe.

“No,” Pete laughs. “No, but are you going to sleep in jeans?” 

“Shit. No,” Patrick replies, and Pete reaches to undo the button of Patrick’s jeans and nudge the waistband over his hips. Patrick wrestles with his t-shirt, interrupted by his shoulders, and then his chin, and then his elbows. Pete tugs him to bed with his thumb and two fingers around Patrick’s wrist and slithers out of his own clothes beneath the sheets, and Patrick lies between the mattress and his duvet and laughs until he falls asleep.

♥

Saturday morning comes with a hangover like Patrick hasn’t had in months, pounding and relentless. He feels nauseous from the moment the light hits his pupils, having forgotten to close the blinds the night previous, and Patrick lurches upwards and scrubs at his eyes. The duvet pools at his waist and he’s sweaty, even more so than usual after waking up next to Pete. Patrick shoves it to his knees. 

“Fuck,” Patrick says, and immediately wishes he hadn’t, even if it only comes out as a whisper. 

“Don’t feel good?” Pete asks. 

“Fucking awful.” 

“I’m okay,” Pete replies. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Patrick demands, and Pete gives him a sympathetic smile.

“Go back to sleep,” Pete coaxes. His thumb traces the curve of Patrick’s spine and Patrick wants to lean into it desperately. He gives Pete a pitiful look and hopes it conveys just how much he wants to be taken care of like a bedridden child. Pete kisses his forehead and Patrick makes a low sound of gratitude.

“I’ll get over it,” Patrick tells him quietly. The morning also comes with the cruel realization that the weekend will pass like Memorex on fast-forward and the thought does nothing to alleviate the pounding in Patrick’s ears. He presses the heel of his hands to his eyes and rejoices in the momentary relief from the grinding headache and tells Pete softly, “There’s Advil in my nightstand.” 

Pete kisses his temple, his ear, his neck, and mumbles, “I’ll get you a water.” 

Pete hands him the glass of water and three Advil from the palm of his hand. Patrick chews two and swallows the other, and asks, fifteen minutes later when it takes effect, “You know what’s funny?” 

His arms around Patrick’s shoulders and his hands tangled together in Patrick’s lap, Pete presses his forehead, feverish, to the back of Patrick’s shoulder and yawns. He hums and it vibrates through Patrick’s bones. 

“If it was just William who invited me out for New Year’s, I would have gone.” 

Pete sighs, breath skittering over the soft planes of Patrick’s back and down the shallow trench of his spine. “Why?” Pete asks, though he sounds disinterested. “You don’t like Nate?” 

“No,” Patrick counters. “I do, but I don’t like them together.” It soaks in for a moment. “You know how I said that Greta and I were never really close?”

Pete’s palms float over Patrick’s biceps. “Yeah,” Pete says. 

“That’s not how I feel now.” 

“Yeah,” Pete says again, a subtle indication for Patrick to keep talking. 

“But,” Patrick starts, and wraps his fingers around Pete’s hands in his lap. “It’s still not the same as being able to see you, like, _whenever_ I want, or not making plans for the weekend on purpose, or pissing off Hayley because I’m late for work the third time in a week.” Pete kisses the back of his neck and Patrick says, “Like, I know— It doesn’t make me feel any differently, but it’s not the same.” Patrick twists his thumbs in the pillow and admits, “It’s not _this._ ”

“I know,” Pete mumbles, barely over a whisper. “It’s not the same.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“I get it,” Pete insists. “It’s okay. I get to have this.” 

“It’s just not fair,” Patrick struggles, and Pete takes both Patrick’s hands in his and presses his thumbs into Patrick’s palms. 

“Just— it’s not worth worrying about right now,” Pete says. “Just forget about it.” 

♥

Sunday morning, in a time crunch to get breakfast and meet Pete’s plane, Patrick stands leaning against the bathroom sink and brushes his teeth, dressed in only boxers and his glasses sitting crookedly on his face, and he is the sexiest thing Pete has ever seen. Patrick catches his eye in the doorway and says around his toothbrush and a mouthful of toothpaste, “What?”

Pete watches him, and Patrick spits in the sink and says again, toothbrush in hand, “What?” 

There’s toothpaste in the corners of his mouth and a blush rising over his cheeks, and Pete takes his face and his hands and kisses Patrick’s mouth. Patrick abandons the toothbrush to wrap his forearms around Pete’s neck. 

“Coffee is being postponed,” Pete says. Patrick’s mouth is soft and warm and tastes of mint, and Pete can’t help but think that this is what kissing someone you like is supposed to feel like. It’s sweet but also biting and flutters excitedly in Pete’s chest. Patrick’s mouth is tortuous, and Pete plants his hands firmly on Patrick’s hips and drops to his knees. 

“Turn around,” Pete whispers into the front of his thigh, and Patrick does, presses his hips into the blue laminate countertops and shivers when Pete pulls the waistband of his boxers over the round of his ass. 

“You’re going to be late,” Patrick breathes. Pete bites the backs of his thighs and the flesh of his ass and drags his teeth over Patrick’s lower back, and Patrick drops his forehead to the counter and mumbles, “Oh, _fuck._ ” 

“Okay?” Pete asks. 

“You’re going to be _late,”_ Patrick tells him again. It comes out a little harder, but Patrick lets his boxers fall to the tiled floor and gives a breathless laugh.

“That’s not what I asked,” Pete whispers, and Patrick pushes back against his hand and whines. 

“Yeah, it’s fine, Pete, I’m—” and then Pete is fumbling in the bathroom drawer for lubricant with one hand still wrapped around the inside of Patrick’s thigh. 

A little frantic and short on time, Pete slides two slick fingers into him with inconsiderable resistance, spilling a catalogue of encouraging words and his other hand rubbing figures into Patrick’s lower back. Patrick replies with demanding whines and an excess of _please_ , blunt fingernails scraping over the counter. 

His thumbs pressed into Patrick’s flesh, Pete works him with deft fingers and his tongue, pushes Patrick’s hips back to the counter with a soft, “Just wait,” when Patrick presses back against his mouth. Patrick gasps each time Pete’s tongue holds him open and Pete twists his fingers just the right way, and with his teeth in his forearm, Patrick stutters, “You should— fuck, touch my cock, please, I want it—”

Pete makes a keening noise, sharper than Patrick expects, and reaches for Patrick’s cock. With Pete’s hand wrapped loosely around his dick and Pete’s mouth on his ass and the backs of his thighs, Patrick rests his face against the cold laminate and makes a breathless noise. 

It doesn’t take long for Patrick to get off after that— trembling against Pete’s fingers, the slippery friction of Pete’s hand around his cock and Pete’s sharp incisors in his skin. Pete groans against his ass, runs a hand down the length of Patrick’s back, cups the swell of his bare ass and squeezes, and Patrick comes, panting into the countertop. Pete crooks his fingers and Patrick whines for it until he’s shaking and fully soft in Pete’s hand. 

Pete’s hand is a mess of come and cheap lubricant, and Pete admires the fluttering muscles in Patrick’s shoulders and their mess and whispers in disbelief, “I— fuck.”

His knees crack as he stands, protesting from being pressed into the floor, and Pete kisses the processes of Patrick’s spine and his deltoids. He makes a soft noise, considering, and wipes the remaining lubricant on the head of his cock. He holds Patrick’s head against his shoulder to kiss him, and Patrick grabs for his wrist and runs his tongue between Pete’s fingers, a hint of teeth. The taste of lubricant is heavy in his mouth, slick around the pads of Pete’s fingers, and Pete’s hips stutter irregularly. Pete slides his cock between Patrick’s thighs and Patrick tightens dumbly around it, still thoroughly consumed by his own orgasm; Pete fucks his thighs and gasps into his neck. 

The edge of the counter is sharp. The smooth edge leaves an ugly indent transversing Patrick’s hipbones and it leaves his lower back slightly numb. Slightly numb, Patrick thinks, is how he feels, though blissed out. and even soft, Patrick presses back against him. Pete makes an appreciative noise, and even soft, Patrick presses back against him. Pete holds Patrick’s back against his chest with his heart pounding and his fingerprints marking the flat expanse beneath Patrick’s collarbones. 

Pete comes on a sharp exhale, his teeth in Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick moans around his thumb. Pete strokes his hair and the back of his neck mindlessly, and Patrick pulls Pete’s fingers from his mouth gently and says quietly, “You're late. Was it worth it?"

Pete regains consciousness over a few breaths, though he leaves himself draped across Patrick’s shoulders, his chin hooked over the top of Patrick’s shoulder. Panting slightly, Pete tells him, “I’m not ready to go home.”

Patrick holds Pete’s clumsy hands to his chest; his pale fingers intertwine with Pete’s thumbs and Patrick sighs and lets his head fall to rest against Pete’s. Patrick agrees softly, “Yeah.” 

They get coffee in a tiny corner of the airport because it’s all they have time for, and Patrick picks at his pastry and tells him, “I’m sorry you didn’t get to see much. The inside of my apartment, maybe.” 

“I did,” Pete insists. “I didn’t do anything touristy but I don’t care. This was amazing, like, what’s the opposite of Christmas in July? Memorial Day in January?”

Patrick peers at him over the upper frame of his glasses and bites sticky pastry off the ends of his fingers. Patrick’s teeth graze the pads of his fingers and Pete feels the usual pang of heat in the pit of his stomach and tight across his shoulder blades. He must show some level of interest because Patrick laughs, and Pete tells him, “No one ever expects you to be conniving, but— you’re conniving.” 

“Oh, fuck off,” Patrick says fondly. He looks around quickly for watchful eyes and then swirls his tongue around the end of his thumb. Pete kicks him under the table. 

“Seriously,” Pete asserts, and touches Patrick’s forearm across the table. “This was — heavenly.”

Just inside the alcove, Pete kisses him quickly, soft and gentle and the entire weekend’s activities wrapped up in Pete’s mouth pressed to his. Patrick stares up at him softly and Pete says softly, “I don’t know how to say this.” A hot coffee in one hand and the handle of his suitcase in the other, Pete makes a thoughtful face and continues, “And you can call me stupid for thinking it, but, I don’t think God plays dice.” 

Pete laughs, embarrassed, and Patrick frowns. 

“What does that mean?” 

“Um— Einstein said that God doesn’t play dice with the Universe. Nothing is random.” 

Patrick shifts from one foot to the other, thinking, and says finally, “Dice aren’t random.” 

“Yeah,” Pete replies. “Exactly.” 

Patrick doesn’t get it, but he does get the same fleeting butterflies-in-his-stomach feeling that he always does when Pete touches his hip and kisses him for a final time.


	13. In which Patrick is five-foot-something and his bills are not paid.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“‘Were you in love with him?’_  
>  ‘Yes, I say,’ simply. ‘Yes, I was.’ It’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is, I’m in love with him still.” — M.L. Rio

_January, Year IV.II_

Patrick sits at his kitchen counter with a seltzer water under his fingertips and his mind split between his inbox and his conversation with Hayley. It’s dark in the kitchen, and it’s late, he notes, eyes flickering to the digital clock in the corner of his computer screen. He spins the can of seltzer between his thumb and ring finger and reminds himself to pay attention when Hayley asks, “How was your weekend with Pete?”

Patrick thinks for a moment before he answers. The weekend is clouded by rose-colored glasses or bright enough he can only stand to look at it in his peripheral vision. His mind has been reeling since Sunday night, caffeinated and steeping in the implications of Pete’s _I don’t think God plays dice._

“Um,” Patrick says, still unsure. “It was good.” 

The noise Hayley makes sounds like an eye roll. She laughs and teases, “You’re not moving back to Boston?” 

Patrick laughs. “Nah.” He moves a message from his inbox into the trash folder and asks, “Hey, are Erin and Gabe really getting married? Do you think I’ll get an invite?” 

“Who told you _that_?” Hayley demands. 

Patrick frowns at his screen and tells her, “Pete. I think that’s what he said.” 

“Oh,” she says, resigned. “Maybe he knows something I don’t.” 

Unconcerned, Patrick starts, “Remember that show we went to with your friend? I need the number of the guy you talked to— the sound engineer.” 

Hayley promises to send him the information when she’s back in the office and notes that he sounds tired, and against the blue light of his laptop and with the nearly-empty aluminum can in his hands, Patrick admits that he’s probably even more tired than he sounds. 

“Get some rest. There’s nothing you can’t do tomorrow,” Hayley tells him, and Patrick nods.

Patrick closes his laptop with the sense of finality that only comes with staying up past one’s usual bedtime, showers without having a single thought, and retreats to bed. His room is cold from being closed up during the day and his sheets don’t smell like his cologne, though he’s washed them twice. He’s overtired and teetering on the edge of nauseous, and lying in the dark and feeling sorry for himself, Patrick reaches the unfortunate conclusion that his bed, smelling of laundry soda and someone’s signature winter scent, is simply too big for one person. He lets himself wallow in self-pity for another five minutes before he rolls to one side of the bed and reaches for his phone. 

_I have plans to be bored this weekend,_ he sends William, thumbs hovering over the touchscreen. He wrinkles his nose and swipes the message into existence. _Do you want to do something?_

It’s too late and Patrick falls asleep waiting for the reply, blinking away sleep and staring at the phone clutched in his hand. He wakes up to find William’s reply, direct and transparent. 

_Drink beer?_ William writes, and in the morning light, dampened by clouds, Patrick laughs. 

_Yes,_ Patrick writes in return, _Saturday._

Patrick spends most of the workweek making excuses for getting nothing done and decides to stop by William’s office before he goes home Friday night. 

“Hey,” Patrick says in the doorway. William looks up from his laptop and makes an enthused face and Patrick can’t help the slight smile. “See you tomorrow?” 

“Yeah!” is William’s enthusiastic reply. He points to his laptop and says, “I’ll text you.” 

Patrick gives him a thumbs up in parting and throws his backpack over his shoulder.

He spends a considerable portion of his pay-cheque for the week on a collection of beer for Saturday night. He supposes he can persuade William to try most of them at least, and at best, induce an appreciation for something darker. Something they can share, Patrick hopes, and thinks absently as he hands his card to the acne-ridden man working the register that he should ask what else William likes to drink. 

Then, paper bag clutched in his armpit and walking briskly back to his apartment, Patrick remembers that he’s never been good at making mixed drinks. 

Patrick presses the buzzer on the Intercom just inside the stairwell of William’s apartment, and William unlocks his apartment door with a sideways grin. William tells him, peering around the doorframe with his hand still twisted around the doorknob, “You didn’t tell me what you wanted to eat so I made something for you."

Patrick’s voice sticks in his throat for a moment. He coughs lightly. “You made dinner just because I was coming over?”

William’s grin widens. “Yeah, you seemed enthused about the kitchen last time, so I thought—”

Patrick backpedals unnecessarily. “Oh, I wasn’t trying to imply anything,” Patrick protests. “I just—”

William takes the paper bag from him gently and says, laughing, “I made you dinner. The least you can do is say thank you.”

“This is—” Patrick mumbles a short time later, and swallows. “Really fucking good.” 

Over the small table just outside William’s kitchen, just big enough for a tight three, William accepts the compliment humbly, gives him a tight smile, and pushes his food around his plate. He says, “It’s not difficult, really.” 

“So?” Patrick shoves himself backward from the table and asks hastily, “Do you want a beer?” 

“Sure,” William agrees, and then straightens in his chair and declares sharply, “I have a proposal.” At Patrick’s inquisitive glance, “I feed you, and you promise to watch every Italian cult-classic horror with me.” 

Patrick places two glass bottles on the table, chews slowly, and shakes his head. 

William asks bluntly, “Have you seen _Inferno_?” 

Patrick agrees quickly, “Yes, forever ago, but why watch _Inferno_ if you don’t see _Suspiria_ first? Neither is a cult classic, though, it’s just old school horror— not every old movie is a classic.” 

“ _Inferno_ is a cult classic,” William argues. 

Patrick shakes his head. “It’s not. Cult classic is, like, _Barbarella_ or _Donnie Darko_.” 

William’s scoff is cutting and he looks offended. “You said you didn’t even like horror.” 

“I didn’t say that,” Patrick insists. “I’m just not obsessed.” 

“Watch _Inferno_ with me.”   


Patrick makes a face and scrubs at his nose under the bridge of his glasses. There are a few bites of dinner left and a third of a glass of beer and Patrick glances around the table and finally agrees, “Yeah, okay.” William gives him a victorious grin and waits for the catch, which is, “But we have to watch something stupid afterward so I can go to sleep.” 

“I see how this works,” William replies, teasing, and Patrick rolls his eyes and shovels the remainder of his plate into his mouth. 

“We’ll see,” Patrick says lightly. 

William flips the lights and settles into the cushions on the couch, and Patrick throws his knees over William’s lap and reaches for his beer on the floor. He’s cautious of his elbows in William’s stomach and his knees near William’s face, especially when William reaches for the blanket thrown over the arm of the couch and pulls it over their legs. William’s hand finds his knee halfway through, but otherwise, William is statue-still beneath him through the movie, and as the credits go fuzzy on the television screen, Patrick says, “Not as scary as I remember.”

William looks close to sleep, eyes fluttering closed every few seconds and flushed cheeks visible even in the dark room. He yawns and loops an arm around Patrick’s waist, and Patrick laughs softly. Patrick touches the sharp lines of William’s face with warm fingers, and William asks, “Still need to watch something stupid?”

Patrick’s wide smile slides onto his face slowly, molasses-like, and never one for nuance, Patrick flicks his eyes between William’s knuckles and his sharp cheekbones and says stiffly, despite the fond expression, “No, but you can kiss me.”

Patrick shoves the throw blanket to the floor and pulls him closer, and William reaches for Patrick’s hand and entwines their fingers. The soft pads of William’s fingers slip over the veins on the back of Patrick’s hands, puffy from stagnant warmth.

William’s mouth is sticky against his, slow and shy and tasting of expensive beer and unscented Chapstick. William kisses him like he needs more practice and William kisses him like the clock is stopped, like it’s not midnight in his apartment but somewhere devoid of the limitations of time, and Patrick is itchy. Done with lazy, inconsequential, sloppy make out sessions gone soft, and frustration growing under his tongue, Patrick grasps at the belt loops on William’s jeans and feels William’s hips twitch underneath his fingers.

It’s hot, more control than Patrick feels he’s had in months, and with his voice shaking, Patrick asks, “Can we take these off?”

William hums and nods in reply; Patrick’s fingers walking down the zipper of his jeans. William pulls his jeans over delicate hips and throws them over the back of the couch, and then Patrick is pushing him gently backward and crawling over William’s thighs. The kiss is needier, impatient, and Patrick sighs and feels his own pulse where his fingers are wrapped around William’s biceps.

This time, when William brushes his fingers over the seam where Patrick’s button-up meets the waistband of dark jeans, three drinks deep, Patrick makes a tiny breathy sound and grasps at the buttons just below his collar. Patrick works through his shirt buttons with stumbling hands, his fingers feeling too swollen to make any progress, but the last button comes undone with a careful slip of Patrick’s thumb and William pulls it off his shoulders with quiet confidence. Patrick waits for the inelegant moment in which William studies the soft curves of his shoulders and chest, but instead, William slides his palms over Patrick’s sides and asks softly, “Okay?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick chokes, and it comes out too loud for the quiet of the room; the television on low volume, his own breathy sigh, and William so close. “Definitely.” 

William nods and moves to kiss his collar at the same time that Patrick decides to kiss William's mouth, and Patrick’s teeth bump William’s forehead. 

“Sorry,” Patrick whispers and laughs, staring at William’s red mouth with gentle eyes and a goofy smile. “It’s just—” He laughs again and says, “It’s been a while.” 

William nods and kisses his neck. He’s thoroughly unconcerned and Patrick forgets to add _since I’ve been with someone else other than—_ and neglects to mention that he’s more or less convinced he’d reached peak sexual euphoria a week ago with his knees locked around Pete’s hips and the taste of Pete’s tongue in the back of his mouth. 

“We can go slow. We can be careful,” William tells him, and Patrick nods. 

“Yeah, that’d be good,” Patrick replies before he rolls his hips against William’s and drags William by the back of the neck to meet his mouth. 

And an hour later, Patrick stands on William’s balcony in a worn long-sleeve t-shirt and sweatpants, not his own, and stares into the alley below. There’s a borrowed expensive cigarette between his teeth and his hair is damp, and beside him, William falls against the railing lightly and reveals, “You’re fun, you know.” 

Amused, Patrick repeats, “Fun.”

“Yeah,” William muses. “I like you and this is fun. Why doesn’t anyone just have sex and have fun and worry about feelings when—,” William pauses and corrects, “ _If_ they happen.” He can’t read the look Patrick gives him then, shadows falling across his face and thinking, and William continues, “No one ever falls in love when they want to.” 

Patrick dangles the cigarette over the railing with loose fingers. A small smile plays across the lower half of his face, but his eyes are teasing and lukewarm. He crosses his ankles, left over right, and tells William pointedly, “A little early to be talking about love, you think?” 

William grabs Patrick’s forearm, grinning, and snatches the cigarette from Patrick’s hand. “Hey, watch where you put that,” William laughs, and Patrick finds William’s mouth with his own. 

“Do you ever smoke anything but cigarettes?” Patrick asks, close enough to rub noses. 

“Not really,” William admits. “Occasionally.” 

“You should,” Patrick tells him quietly, “And I should go home.” He frowns and teases, “I’m afraid of the dark.”

At home, Patrick sets the deadbolt and lights the stove for the tea kettle with a click. The kitchen is eerily silent, dark except for the glowing yellow light over the stove, and Patrick rifles through his collection of tea bags thrown into a communal box and stares at the digital clock on the back of the stove before he picks something herbal and decaffeinated and shoves the rest back into the cabinet. 

He’s trying to drink more tea than coffee, a New Year’s decision that is proving to be more difficult than expected after spending weeks staying up later than what is typically considered healthy. Patrick leans against the counter, pockets catching on the corner, and closes his eyes while he waits for the water to boil, and then he pours hot water into a chipped mug and reaches for his phone. 

In his bedroom, pitch black, Patrick sets his tea on the nightstand and strips his shirt, dropping it to the floor amongst several other shirts. Pete’s voice comes crackling through the speaker of the phone and Patrick collapses onto the bed and focuses on becoming one with the bedsheets, relaxing each finger and little toe until he’s boneless; the only thing keeping him awake is Pete’s soft voice on the phone. He wishes he’d remembered to take off his jeans before dropping his face to the pillow. 

“Hey,” Patrick says, and then definitively, although quietly, “My week’s been shit.”

Pete sighs. “Mine, too.” 

Patrick’s phone vibrates quietly, but he ignores it and instead lets his eyes fall closed and mumbles, “Tell me about it.”

♥

Tuesday morning, Patrick steps out of the shower to find that Pete’s name is still on the mirror. Patrick stares at it in defeat for a moment before he swipes at it furiously. His hands are equally sweaty from humidity and trepidation, worsening with the transfer of moisture from the mirror to his palms, and the water smears over the mirror unevenly. Patrick glances at his reflection in the mess; the condensation gives the appearance of tears on his face.

“Fuck!” 

Patrick pulls his sweater from the bathroom counter over his head in a panicked frenzy and by the time he gets to his bedroom, he’s blinking back real tears, stinging and angry. Patrick pulls on the rest of his clothes, leaves his wet towel on the bedroom floor, and stuffs his bare feet in his runners, sniveling. He slams the apartment door on the way out.

_February, Year IV_

Ryan Ross is the sort of person that peaked three years through a Bachelor’s degree in a social science— a sociology degree, or linguistics, maybe. As a student, he blended seamlessly into the masses of a lecture hall and on the weekends made himself known by smuggling his sister’s and his roommates’ prescription drugs and liberally administering them at parties. 

So when Ryan bumps into him at the Delux while Pete is ordering a diet Dr. Pepper over two ounces of vodka and ice, touches Pete’s elbow, and says, “Hey, I think we had a global-local politics class together. Second year?” Pete finds himself completely unsurprised. 

This is funny to Pete because the class is irrelevant; he saw Ryan at house parties on Saturdays and at OHE, intoxicated and engrossed in some unsuspecting freshman, on Thursdays. Pete saw, or rather heard of, Ryan’s parents bailing him out of student disciplinary hearings after his apartment failed an unplanned inspection on a dry campus. Pete bore witness to four years of a self-destructing, hurricaning Ryan Ross, and Ryan still asks about a glocal-local politics class.

Ryan’s demonstrated charm is an adequate concealment of the nonchalant, aloof even, personality that lies under his skin, but facing each other over the bar, the digital clock minutes from eleven, Pete thinks the exaggerated charisma is a little transparent.

Pete pulls a pleasant expression. Ryan asks, “What’re you ordering?” 

“A Dr. Kevorkian.” 

Pete leans a hip against the edge of the bar. There is Perfume Genius on the overhead stereo and Pete has been freezing all night, even after dressing in layers, a pullover over flannel over a long-sleeved t-shirt. He thinks the cold can be summed up to the remnants of the stuffiness and fever he’d had through the first two weeks of February, likely the result of a week of international travel. Pete has spent the last month sniffling through phone conversations and meetings with clients, but if Patrick has any symptoms of the same mild illness, he hasn’t mentioned it. 

Ryan watches him carefully and Pete resists the undying urge to wipe his nose on his sleeve. His nose twitches; Ryan’s face splits into an inebriated grin. 

“Nice,” Ryan says. “I was just about to get something else.” 

“Oh, what do you want?” Pete asks with exaggerated interest and gestures over the bar. “I’ll buy.” 

Pete gestures over the bar and Ryan leans over the barstools and the edge of the bar and yells, “Lemon vodka sour— with basil, please.”

Pete challenges, “Doesn’t ordering a sour imply there’s already lemon in it?” He thinks the inquisition is worth at least a half-hearted chuckle but Ryan ignores it entirely, and Pete tells him, “I have to go get cash.” 

Pete rummages through the pockets of his coat, hanging over the back of a chair, and across the raised table, Gabe slides him a twenty dollar bill with a sharp look. 

“Do you have my wallet?” Pete asks, and then, “Ryan is here.”

Gabe peers around him to goggle at Ryan, now alone at the bar and swirling his drink in his hand, watching the ice cubes move in the glass. “Yeah,” Gabe says tightly. “I noticed.” 

Pete gives him a prompting look and Gabe shrugs. 

“Didn’t you hook up in college?” 

Pete finishes the glass he’d left on the table earlier, water from melted ice cubes and bitter with alcohol. He scowls and confirms, “Yeah.”

“You could stand to look a little more excited,” Gabe notes and asks, “Aren’t you hot? You’re wearing so many layers, dude.” 

Pete pulls at the collar of his crewneck and clears his throat. “I may or may not have an illness. I’m not contagious."

“Lovesick.” Pete’s scowl deepens, and Gabe advises, “Go try some emotionless sex. This is a rebound. They suck but they’re good for you in the end.” 

Pete snatches the bill off the surface of the table. “I’m not rebounding,” Pete corrects drily. “We’re not, like, over.” 

Gabe doesn’t argue. He shrugs. “If you’re just trying to get laid, then go home with Ryan.” Pete attempts an eye roll, uncertain, and Gabe touches his elbow and insists, “Dude, you’re in such a mood. Just see what happens. Maybe you’ll feel better.” 

“Guarantee it’ll suck,” Pete drones and gently bumps Gabe’s outstretched fist. 

Gabe tells him, “That’s the spirit.” 

Conversation with Ryan is like playing tennis with himself, hitting it hard enough to bounce back and finding that the wall has an overwhelming tendency to propel the discussion wildly in either direction. Twenty minutes and he’s sick of small talk, short of asking if Ryan has plans to be naked at any point before one in the morning. 

Ryan’s shirt is Raf Simons (Pete knows because he almost bought it before deciding he’d never wear it out of a Bergdorf’s dressing room), and Pete asks, “What did you say you do again?” 

Vaunting, Ryan says, “I work for a bank downtown. The office job sucks but it pays pretty well.” 

“Which bank?” Pete inquires, and at Ryan’s snide answer, Pete replies, “I think I bailed your company president out of corporate credit card fraud two years ago.” 

Ryan gives a small laugh but doesn’t answer otherwise, and Pete announces, “I’m going to get another drink.” 

Too quick to be casual, Ryan blurts out, “I bet I can make you one better.” 

“Yeah?” Pete agrees. It’s genuinely noncommittal and Pete hopes it comes off as composed, flippant even. “Let me go tell my friend I’m leaving.” 

“Hey.” Pete curls a hand around Gabe’s bicep and discloses, “I’m going home with Ryan.” 

Gabe gives him a look and gestures at him. “Okay,” he agrees. “Text me when you get there and when you leave.”

Kissing in the car back to Ryan’s quickly turns to biting and Ryan’s hands in many layers, and when Ryan opens his apartment door to a large-but-cluttered and wall-papered living room, Ryan is quick to pull him to the couch and shove his jeans and the elastic waistband of his briefs to his knees. 

Pete sucks him off on the couch. The brick brown corduroy fabric of Ryan’s couch leaves lines in his knees, and Ryan arranges himself in the throw pillows, fists his hands in his own hair, and makes the appropriate noises. He’s only half-hard in Pete’s mouth and obviously more concerned with looking like a seventies sex symbol than actually getting off.

It sucks, and Pete spits Ryan’s cock out of his mouth and avoids the urge to wipe his mouth on his hand. “Is this— are you okay, because this isn’t fun if you’re like—”

Ryan slams his mouth closed and pushes himself up on his elbows. “Yeah, it’s great. Are you good?”

“You just don’t seem like you’re that into this,” Pete replies, and feels his mouth twist.

“Dude, it’s just for fun.” 

It hits Pete like a slap in the face, sharp and cold, and Pete swallows obtrusive liquid at the back of his throat and echoes, “Just for fun?” 

“Did you want to do something else? You can fuck me if you want. I’m fine with doing something less—” Ryan gestures between them, his half-hard cock and Pete sitting back on his heels, still in his boxers and socks. 

“Less vanilla,” Pete finishes for him. 

“Yeah, dude, I don’t know— like, this is fine but you haven’t even seen my bedroom.” Ryan laughs awkwardly and Pete raises his eyebrows. 

“Sorry, I guess I just didn’t expect you to be into that the second time we’ve hooked up,” Pete says, voice strangled. 

Ryan asks incredulously, “The _second?_ ”

Pete gapes at him. “In college?"

“Am I supposed to remember that?” Ryan stares at him like he has this conversation daily, and if that doesn’t already make Pete feel thoroughly cheap, Ryan then rolls his eyes to his chipping plaster ceiling and deadpans, “Maybe you’re just not as good at this as you think you are.” 

Pete bites at his lip and tries not to feel embarrassed. He tries not to tell Ryan that he’s wrong, because he just had world-ending sex less than a month ago, and maybe Ryan is the problem, not him. He tells himself it’s not worth the energy, that even hate sex with Ryan won’t make him feel better, so Pete stands up from the couch and announces, “You know what? I think I’m just gonna go.”

A participant in the indoor walk of shame, Pete stuffs his feet through his pant legs, stuck on his socks, and feels his blood boil. Ryan watches him, an awkward smile playing across the lower half of his face, and Pete rolls his eyes with his eyelids closed and asks, “What’s the closest station for the Green line?” 

“I don’t know,” Ryan replies casually. “I usually take the bus.”

“I’ll just get an Uber.” 

Pete slams the door to Ryan’s apartment and takes the stairs two at a time to the street, and waiting for a blue Nissan Rogue, simultaneously sweating and freezing under four layers of clothing, Pete thinks, _who the fuck takes the bus?_

_March, Year IV_

Drinks on the second Friday of the month come as a welcome relief after an emotionally exhausting work week, and waiting for William to walk to the pub together, Patrick scrubs his hands through his hair in the mirror and thinks that everything seems to be deteriorating quickly since Pete left. He’s being careful, upfront with Pete on the phone and participating in the blandest definition of new-relationship sex on the weekends, cautious about boundaries and emotions, and keeping his fingers crossed that no one asks too much of him. 

_Fun_ , William had said, and that’s what it is.

William knocks on the door and Patrick extends his wallet and phone to William in the doorway and asks, “Can you hold my phone?” He shrugs on his coat and hears his phone buzz. 

William peeks at his phone on instinct. He asks, “Who’s Pete?”

Patrick expects to panic. He expects to blurt out some half-assed lie he’d have to admit to later, or for the ceiling to commence crumbling, or for William to snap his phone in half, but William asks the question innocently, genuinely curious. Patrick glances at him, just outside of monocular vision, and William’s soft expression reminds him that they’d agreed not to play games, and even better, this is supposed to be _fun._ In the split second between his panic and his response, Patrick considers that William might authentically like him. 

Patrick says, “A friend from Boston.” 

It’s not a lie, and William returns Patrick’s phone and wallet without contention, clearly satisfied with the answer. Patrick shoves his hands, clasped around his belongings, into the pockets of his coat and admits further, “We used to go out— a bit. We’re still close.” 

William ushers Patrick into the hall, closes the apartment door behind him, and fits his sunglasses to his face. “Was that the one you were visiting with in January? No, last month, right?”

“Yeah,” Patrick confirms. “It was January.” 

William pulls Patrick’s hips to his on the sidewalk and throws an arm around Patrick’s shoulders. “I liked the honey beer,” William tells him, and Patrick feels his shoulders drop inches, his hand around his phone in his pocket. “Belgian-style next, yeah?” 

“No,” Patrick corrects. William laughs. “Try an American, or maybe a malt beer.” 

The restaurant is dimly lit and intimate, and listening to William talk about numbers at work and last weekend’s yoga, endlessly berated by Nate and Joe, Patrick chews and mulls over the fact that William is smarter than he will ever be. 

“Stop talking about work,” Joe emphasizes over the table. “Work is a banned subject; talk about anything else.” 

Meditative, too, and possessing a calming aura that makes Patrick feel grounded, even as he watches William and Nate argue over the table, too engrossed in each other to notice anything else, and Patrick pulls his phone from his pocket under the table and peeks at the message from Pete. The screen is blurred, tilted at a funny angle, but Patrick still manages to read, _I finished it._

Patrick’s stomach swoops to his chest and burns with something like jealousy, but cleaner and kinder (it’s pride, though Patrick doesn’t recognize it as such). He stifles a smile and throws William a look over the table. 

“Downward doggy style,” is Nate’s latest crude joke, and Patrick shoves his phone back into his back pocket and devotes himself to the table’s machismo energy for the next hour and a half. 

Patrick walks him home, more or less, because William’s apartment is conveniently located a block from where he catches the bus. His hands stuffed in his pockets, concealed from the cold, Patrick takes a trembling inhale and asks, “Do you think it’s weird that we’ve been going out and working together? Are we supposed to— I don’t know, tell someone?” 

“Um—” William makes a pained face, his hand over his mouth. “It’s hush, but— it doesn’t matter, because I’m quitting.” Patrick chokes, and William says quickly, “Not because of you or anything; I quit before New Year’s. I’m just sticking around until Vicky finds a replacement.” 

Patrick stares at him on the sidewalk and frowns. “Why?” 

William shrugs. “I want to do something else. I thought I would like if my job and my interests were the same but I don’t, so—” William shrugs again and tells him, “I’m quitting.” 

“Why don’t you like it?” 

“I don’t know,” William admits. “Don’t you know anyone who uses their office job to fund their hobby? That’s what I want to do. Don’t you get tired of only focusing on one thing? I mean, you and Nate spend your entire week either going to shows or talking about it.” 

Patrick thinks about the only person he knows with a well-paying office job and thinks that besides the book, which is free, Pete’s hobbies include social drinking and— Patrick makes a face. “No, because I love it. It’s not work if I love it."

William shuffles his feet against the concrete and nods before he changes the subject. “Okay. I told you a secret, and now you have to tell me one.”

Patrick hums, thinking, and eventually says, “I don’t have one. I can’t think of one.” 

“You can’t think of one secret?” William asks, dumbfounded. “Not even a real secret, just something I don’t know.” Patrick raises his eyebrows. “You’ve never even, like, stolen something?” 

“I snuck into Fenway Park once?” At William’s inquisitive glance, Patrick insists, “It’s not a good story.” 

“I’m sure it is. Dimmi.” _Tell me._

Patrick finishes an itinerant version of the events just outside William’s apartment, and right inside the stairwell, William runs his thumb down the back of Patrick’s neck and sighs, “You should stay and hang out for a while.” 

Patrick checks his watch for show. It’s early and Patrick has no intention of abandoning William at the bottom of the stairs, especially when William’s hands on the tight muscles of his shoulders feel heavenly and his only prior evening plans are to slip into unconsciousness and sleep in the next morning. Patrick asks, “Movie? Church?”

Both of William’s hands rest on the soft skin between Patrick’s neck and shoulders and William takes a sharp inhale and corrects him, “It’s _The Church_ ,” and then admits, “ But I said we should be totally honest and if I’m totally honest, I had a different idea of what we should do tonight.” 

Patrick feels his toes curl in his runners and his stomach tighten. “Very smooth,” Patrick laughs before he meets William in a biting kiss and says, “Fuck it, we can do both.”

They do both, and when they’re sick of doting on each other in the afterglow, William hands Patrick his laptop from the bedroom floor and says, “There’s no password. I’m going to make coffee.”

Patrick kisses him softly, like a whisper, and follows it with, “Okay. I’ll take one if you’re offering.” Patrick watches him leave the room, thin and pale and an entirely different view, before he sighs and busies himself with William’s laptop. Even with permission, it still feels like snooping and Patrick still feels the inklings of shame creep up the back of his neck when William sets Patrick’s coffee on the nightstand when he returns and kisses Patrick’s cheek before he slides back into bed. 

Patrick sits with his legs crossed beneath the sheets. Satisfied, he brushes his hand through the longer hair on William’s forehead. William’s arm is thrown behind him, his index fingers drawing fine designs into the soft skin of Patrick’s lower back, and Patrick fixes his glasses and reaches for his coffee on the nightstand. “Hey, um—” he starts after taking a sip from the mug, “I feel like— I feel like I wasn’t totally honest about the text earlier.” His hands feel cold even wrapped around the cup of hot coffee and William reaches for the mug in Patrick’s hands. Patrick hands it over without thinking. 

William peers at him over the arch of the cup. His eyes are wide and kind and Patrick quirks his lip and quips, “You wanted a secret, right?” He laughs awkwardly and pauses briefly. “I, um— we hooked up when he was here in January— a couple of times, and a lot before I moved. It was a little messy, I think. I— I want you to know.”

William presses his side to Patrick’s thigh under the sheets and asks, “Can you hand me my coffee? What do you mean by messy?” 

They trade coffees. 

“It was childish?” Patrick tries. “But really fun. Not technically exclusive but— we were really close. I wasn’t interested in anyone else.”

Naturally intuitive, William inquires, “How close? Were you in love?” 

Patrick laughs just once with his hands twisted around the coffee mug and admits more to himself than to William, “God, yeah, I think so.” 

It feels weird to admit and weirder to say out loud, uncomfortable and nauseating in the same way as being socked in the stomach. Patrick feels his eyelid twitch and sighs. 

William makes a small noise, thinking, and prompts, “What about now?”

Patrick shakes his head. “We’ll still talk but it’s different. I think I’m always going to be a little weird about it, but I don’t want you to think I’m still—”

He doesn’t finish the thought and William asks, “And you’re fine with you and me?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes. His eyes flicker to his phone on William’s nightstand. “I’m happy with you and me. Can we watch the movie now?” 

“Yeah, but—” William sits up in the sheets and matches his side to Patrick’s bicep. “Since you brought it up, you never want to tell me anything about Boston.” 

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“Why?” William asks. 

“It’s just—” Patrick starts.

“Do you have pictures?” William interrupts excitedly. “I want to see pictures.” 

Patrick’s voice sticks in his throat. “Of Pete?” 

“Yeah, whatever,” William answers simply. “Mostrarmi.” _Show me._

William reaches for the laptop on Patrick’s lap and closes the lid carefully, and the following conversation goes like;

“Where is this?” 

“Lir. It’s a bar,” Patrick answers. 

“And you—?” 

“Drink.” 

“And then you—?”

“Go to another bar, or get a coffee late, or go home and—”

Patrick swipes through pictures on his phone, and William points at Pete on the phone and asks shortly, “Smoke cigarettes?”

Patrick laughs and says fondly, “No.” 

“Just drink?” Patrick makes a face; William says definitely, “Weed.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Have you ever taken mushrooms?” 

“No,” Patrick laughs.

“You should,” William tells him, the same tone as Patrick had given him on the balcony a month ago, and Patrick sighs. 

“Maybe.” Patrick’s phone locks with a click and he wraps his forearms around William’s narrow chest. "Can we watch Church now?”

William kisses him. “No, _The Church._ ”

♥

_Sorry didn’t reply to you,_ Patrick writes. _Was over at William’s._ He follows it with a wink, because he’s allowed, and grins when the typing bubble pops up immediately. 

Pete’s reply is a simple, _fun?_

_Yes_

Pete sends back, _Yeah but doe s he make you cum like I do?_ It’s followed by three thinking emojis and the prickling feeling that crawls up Patrick’s spine is too perfectly timed to be coincidence. 

He also thinks that it’s not the kind of text he should just ignore and sends back _Haha. Fuck you, I make myself cum,_ before he pockets his phone. He doesn’t check it again until the deadbolt on his apartment door slides into place and Patrick unlocks his phone to find that Pete has sent him a peace sign. It could be written off as blasé but Patrick knows it’s not, because Pete rarely does anything without some convoluted ulterior motive. It’s a subtle innuendo to the time Pete had sucked him off on the edge of the bed, knees in the carpet, and Patrick had pushed two slick fingers into himself and gotten himself off with a little help, because Pete had just wanted to watch. 

It still gives the same feeling of guilty pleasure that pools in the pit of his stomach and curling within his chest and Patrick hangs up his coat and slides down the wall. Sitting on the floor, back to the wall and legs outstretched, Patrick buries his face in his hands and grins. 

_Congrats on the book by the way,_ he writes. _I’m sure it’s fucking amazing_

_It’s the clearest when it’s me and him alone,_

_He stops, he talks about all the ways he used to let up —_ 1949 

“What’s next?” Patrick asks. 

“So I try to get someone to sell it.” 

“I’ll sell it,” Patrick replies, and laughs. “One copy for me and one copy for your mom.”

‘Hey!” Pete bites back. “You can have it for free. Unedited. I’ll print it off and send it to you.”

“It’s fucking long,” Patrick says. “It’s going to be expensive.” 

Pete pauses for a second, and Patrick assumes he shrugs. “It’s just paper and the binding. It’ll probably look like shit but I bet I can do it for, like, twenty dollars at Staples.” Patrick makes a noise with his tongue over the phone and before he can protest, “And don’t tell me twenty dollars is too much.” 

“What about to ship it?” Patrick asks. “It’s a lot. Why can’t you just send the file?” 

“I’ll send you other stuff,” Pete promises. “Tell me what you want; I’ll send it.” 

Patrick closes his eyes and sighs lightly. “I don’t know what I want.” Another pause and Patrick mumbles, “A love letter. I want a love letter. No, I want the grey blanket that you have— the one that looks like a dead animal, and don’t wash it before you send it.” 

“Damn, that’s gross.” 

Patrick laughs and after a minute, says, “Hey, you’re okay with William and—everything, right?”

The answer doesn’t emerge as a simple yes or no, but instead, “You know that I— you know how I feel about you, but I don’t want you to just sit around and be sad about it.” 

“So I’m just supposed to stop?” 

“Stop what? It takes six months to fall out of love,” Pete quips on the other end, and Patrick rolls his eyes to the ceiling and then to the streetlights below his bedroom window outside. 

“I _want_ to be friends with you.”

“No promises.” Pete finally tells him, “But what I don’t know can’t hurt.” 

“Fine,” Patrick says, “But can I tell you one thing?” 

“Yeah, and then I have something to tell you.” 

“William told me he’s quitting at the office after I asked if we were supposed to tell someone about— you know, going out,” Patrick says. “He also said it had nothing to do with me.” Pete hums, and Patrick throws the covers back on his bed and asks, “Do you think he’s lying?” 

Pete laughs. “No, do you?” Patrick doesn’t give an immediate response, and Pete presses, “I think you’re making it up. Stop looking for things to go wrong.” 

“You’re right. You’re right about all of it,” Patrick admits. He rubs at his eyes. “Tell me what you were going to tell me.”

In the wake of Patrick’s questions about William, who seems well-intentioned and honest, bona fide interest, Pete decides to take his own advice and abstain from telling Patrick about the episode with Ryan. It’s only notable, Pete thinks, if you’ve tracked Ryan’s trajectory from sophomore year of college until now. Pete rolls his lower lip between his teeth and lies, “I forgot what it was.” 

Patrick hums, quiet, and then asks, “Have you ever taken mushrooms?” 

Pete cackles. “What the hell did you do tonight? Go to bed.” 

Still laughing, Patrick sighs, “I’m going to fall asleep. Talk to me until I fall asleep.” 

“About what?” 

“I don't know. The book? Isn’t it hockey season?” 

Pete tells him about the book, something about pre-season baseball statistics, and the new bar on Washington Street until Patrick’s replies become fewer and farther between sentences, and when Patrick officially doesn’t respond, dead to the world, Pete tells him,“I hooked up— well, not really— with a guy from school and it could not fucking have gone over worse. I think I might take a break from drinking; I am making myself insane without you.” 

Pete presses the button on his phone to end the call and goes to shower.

♥

“You’re particularly melancholic lately,” Gabe tells Pete over dinner. “More so than usual.” 

Pete looks up from where he’s hunched over his plate, poking at his food, and shrugs. 

“Sometimes it helps to talk about it?” Gabe prods. Pete glances at him again and sighs. “How’s work?”

“It’s fucking depressing,” Pete says finally. “You know the lady I was telling you about who couldn’t pay her rent because her son got in a car accident?” Pete raises an eyebrow and Gabe nods. “Yeah, they lost that case, so she got turned over to the housing authority. They’re fucking useless. Not my case, but still sucks.” 

“Maybe it’s just a phase,” Gabe offers. 

“It all just piles up eventually,” Pete says, “And I’m not supposed to talk about it, and if it’s not depressing as shit, it’s boring as fuck.”

“Maybe if you hate your job this much, you should look for a new one,” Gabe says. He holds his arms out, like it should be obvious. 

Pete scoffs and says, “It’s not that easy. You have to have, like, connections.” 

Gabe frowns. “What about the book?” 

Pete’s laugh is cruel. “Yeah, that’s really all I’ve got going for me right now.” 

“That’s fantastic about the book, dude,” Gabe insists before Pete interrupts.

“It’s fine,” Pete replies quickly, and shoves his plate away. He doesn’t want to talk about the book. He doesn’t want to talk about any of this. 

“Talk to Patrick lately?” 

Pete’s exaggerated eye roll can be seen from Provincetown. Gabe takes a huge bite to reinforce that he’s done talking and looks at Pete expectedly. Pete isn’t getting out of answering the question, and he barely resists rolling his eyes a second time.

“Yeah,” Pete answers without confidence. “Most days.” 

Gabe hums, considering, and finishes chewing his dinner. “Maybe you should hang out with someone else.” 

“ _Not_ Ryan,” Pete grumbles. 

“I didn’t say anything about Ryan,” Gabe tells him pointedly. 

“You know who he should meet?” Pete asks. He laughs; it’s a leading question. 

“Brendon,” Gabe finishes and nods wisely. “Okay, so work’s not fun and we’re done with the book for now. Ryan Ross is a bitch, but we already knew that, so— what about Brendon’s tall friend?” 

“Hard pass,” Pete drones. “Erin’s red-head friend?” 

Gabe shakes his head. “She has kids.” He takes a drink from a canned beer, makes an unsure face, and asks hesitantly, “Mikey? You guys just kind of stopped talking.” 

Pete considers it for a moment. Mikey was fun and they’d gotten along well enough, outside of Mikey’s occasional social ineptness, and the awkward strain their friendship had put on his relationship with Patrick. The contention had gone both ways and Mikey was noticeably aware that Pete’s interest was half-hearted, but it’s less relevant now. Maybe they’d both grown a bit. Pete shrugs and concedes, “Yeah, I guess.” 

Pete texts Mikey the next evening, after a beer and a pep talk from Gabe. Gabe reminds him that things hadn’t ended badly, but tapered off, and Pete hopes that Mikey doesn’t hold a grudge for neglected friendships. At some point, they were friends (they _were_ friends is quickly becoming a major cinematic theme in Pete’s life), and Pete reads the text over for a second time and sends it. 

_Hey, we haven’t talked in a while. Want to go out and catch up sometime_ _?_


	14. In which Pete goes to the beach, alone.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’m working on drawing a straight line / And I’ll draw until I get one right.”_ — Frightened Rabbit

_April, Year IV_

Pete is twenty minutes late to his coffee date with Mikey at the Thinking Cup. He texts Mikey when he swaps from the Silver to the Green line at Copley with a full disclosure but the weighted guilt hangs off his shoulders regardless as he trudges through pedestrians on Boylston Street and sprints through shoppers on Newbury. Pete blames his tardiness on having agreed to meet Mikey at a café he’s never been to before on the other side of the city, but the train is unusually empty for a Saturday morning and Pete has no one to blame but himself.

Pete is late because the line at the post office was longer than he expected when he dropped off Patrick’s package. Pete is late because he spent the better part of an hour neatly packing candy (nothing that will melt) and a first edition of the book, printed off at Copy Center for much more than Patrick will ever find out he paid, into a cardboard box like a three-dimensional game of Tetris. Before that, he got out of bed late after debating whether he really wanted to go out for breakfast, or if he would rather cancel with a vague excuse and spend the rest of the day finishing chores and dicking around the house. Most of all, Pete is late because writing the letter Patrick had requested with his copy of the book is a more daunting feat than Pete had anticipated. 

Pete writes the note in the early morning, hours before he meets Mikey at the café and early enough to be honest and vulnerable without being mortified by his own words. He thinks it should be beneficial to purge his unedited thoughts before he sees Mikey. When he’s satisfied with the word vomit scrawled across the paper, Pete scribbles his name across the bottom of the card, tucks it into the back pages of the book as, if all goes as planned, a surprise for Patrick to find when he finishes it. He drops the combination into the bottom of the cardboard box. He conceals the book and his stilted confessions with sweets, seals the package with thick layers of cellophane tape, and squeezes his eyes closed as he slides the package over the counter at the post office to be shipped. The postman grabs for it from the scale, and Pete shoves his hands in his pockets in search of his wallet.

Mikey has already finished half of his coffee when Pete arrives. Pete rips his sunglasses off of his face and drops his phone and his wallet into the booth. “I’m so fucking sorry,” Pete tells him hurriedly. “I’m never late to anything important, ask anybody.”

The smile Mikey gives him from the other side of the table doesn’t quite reach his eyes, ending right below his cheekbones. Mikey asks, “What happened?” 

Pete briefly considers lying. He flounders for excuses with his mouth slightly open and apologizes profusely. "I just had a couple of things to do this morning and it took longer than I thought it would. I got off at Arlington, and the train wasn’t even that late, I just left late, so— that’s on me. I’m sorry I’m late.” 

Mikey checks his watch unsubtly and laughs. “It’s no problem. I waited for you to get breakfast and I didn’t order you a coffee because I didn’t know what you wanted.” 

Couples chatter around them, forks scraping against ceramic dishes, and the sound of metal and glass dropped into a dishwasher can be heard from the back of the café. Still standing next to the table, Pete shakes his head, still foggy and throbbing with adrenaline, and grimaces. “Can we eat outside? Do you mind?”

Mikey’s smile goes from exaggerated to tight-lipped. “Sure.” 

Mikey follows him outside and watches joggers and dogs on the sidewalk while Pete mulls over the menu. Pete fails at small talk— the weather is nice, he’s recycled all his opinions about sports, and extracting recommendations for breakfast from Mikey is proving to be futile. 

“I get the same thing every time,” Mikey informs him unhelpfully. “I’m here all the time.” 

Pete glances at Mikey over his menu and the rims of his sunglasses and between small talk, Pete suddenly realizes he’s forgotten every factoid Mikey has ever voiced about himself. The location had been Mikey’s idea, so Pete makes a brutal attempt to curb any conversation that requires prior knowledge and asks instead, “You live close, right? Do you still live in Back Bay?” 

“Closer to Longwood,” Mikey corrects. “Near Boston University and Fenway.” 

Patrick had complained about the Boston University co-ops at the start-up, their lack of motivation, and their subpar writing skills incessantly. Pete returns his focus to his menu and inquires with renewed interest, “Did you go to BU?”

“No, I went to school in Jersey.”

Pete grasps for words. “Do you get to go to baseball games ‘cause you’re close to Fenway? I don’t really watch baseball,” he confesses, and feels the nervous tic, the constant stream of consciousness that escapes his mouth, build at the back of his throat. “No one in my house growing up watched it, like— I guess my dad did, but I’m also not from here, so—” 

Pete trails off and Mikey gives him a funny look. “I’m not from here either. I’m from New Jersey.” 

“Yeah,” Pete replies awkwardly. He scrubs at his face under his sunglasses with his hands. “I got that. I’m not— I wasn’t implying that you were.”

The waitress comes then to take their order, and Pete is glad for it. The rest of breakfast proceeds more smoothly, and Pete finds himself laughing at times, authentically amused. An hour passes, then another, and Mikey finally looks at his watch and excuses himself with a hasty explanation that he has a family engagement in the afternoon.

“Don’t worry about the cheque,” Pete says quickly. “I’ll get it. I still feel bad about being so late.”

Mikey lets him pay for breakfast without pushback, and Pete almost misses the gentle debate about splitting the cost and the casual _I’ll get it next time,_ that never comes. 

“This was good,” Mikey tells him instead. Pete pockets his wallet, and Mikey reaches out to touch Pete’s elbow. “We should do drinks next weekend if you’re around.” 

Pete looks at Mikey’s wiry frame and cool eyes and says as if he hadn’t finalized the decision only seconds before, “I’m actually taking a break from drinking, but we can get dinner sometime— um, I’ll take you out to dinner when you’re free?” 

Mikey grins from underneath the glasses concealing his face and leaves Pete alone at the table outside the door with, “Yeah, sounds good. It was good to see you, I’ll see you soon.” 

_May, Year IV_

Patrick sinks into his duvet and smirks to himself when he wakes up to the good morning text from William, something about making big plans, and then three minutes later, _didn’t mean that as an innuendo!!_

William is pale, thin, and tall, and most importantly, not Pete. He checks all of the boxes: he’s sweet in all the ways Pete isn’t, comfortable with himself, and well-dressed on most days. He buys Patrick coffee in the morning on his way to work and makes him dinner in the evening, and Patrick likes him. Patrick likes the attention, likes the way things are easy, and William is cute and relaxed about everything. He doesn’t care that Patrick moved to Italy to get over his ex-boyfriend (not true, and they never dated, Patrick reminds him firmly), or that Patrick still talks to him daily.

The box is heavy but small enough to stow under his arm, and Patrick jogs halfheartedly to William’s apartment with the cardboard package stashed in his armpit. William opens the door with an expectant look, taken aback by Patrick’s enthusiasm, and Patrick drops the box on William’s glossy countertop and says excitedly, “We’ve got a box.”

“We?” William repeats.

“Yeah,” Patrick replies. He slices through the packing tape with a sharp knife from William’s knife block and chatters as he pulls a collection of items from the box, “From Pete. He sent me, uh— some black licorice, some candied fruit, candy hearts, and—” Patrick squints at the label on the back of the packaging before he rips the flimsy printed cardboard open on one end and announces, “Girl Scout cookies. Shortbread.” 

Patrick offers him a cookie and William bites through half of it and chews slowly, considering. He shrugs.

“It’s not bad,” William admits around a mouth full of shortbread. “Is everything in the US this sweet?” 

_Yes,_ Patrick thinks, and then says shortly, “You would know, but the candy is, yeah.”

At the bottom of the box lies a thick stack of paper, like printer paper shoddily chopped in half, bound with plastic rings. Patrick reaches for it immediately. 

It’s heavy in his hands and the rough edges of cut paper catch on his fingerprints, threatening a paper cut. Patrick smooths the first pages over with the pads of his fingers.

“What’s that?” 

“Pete’s book.” 

“Like your friend?” 

Patrick laughs, bright and bouncing off the tiled walls of William’s kitchen. “Yeah, like my friend.” 

William shifts from where he leans against the counter and frowns. He sighs, introspecting, and says, “God, it’s really long. Have you read it?”

“Not all of it,” Patrick quips. “I never read the end. I think some of it is a little over my head.”

William’s eyebrows crease. “How long do you think it’ll take you to read that?”

“Don’t know,” Patrick quips after a moment. “Maybe a week if I’m good, if I start now.” He shoves the bridge of his glasses up his nose and flips through the cover, a title page, and an erroneous blank page. 

William makes him dinner, and Patrick sits at William’s tiny kitchen table and pours over the first chapter of the book in silence. Acutely aware of William’s occasional glances, Patrick slides to the first page of chapter two and misses his own musing that it’s the first time after a couple of months that he and William have been quiet around each other, non-performative. 

It’s warm and they eat outside. Patrick eats his home-cooked meal in one hand and flips pages under his fingers with the other. William watches him cautiously, ruminating on his food and Patrick’s endearment with the book. Engrossed, Patrick fails to notice, and William clears his throat and inquires, “What’s it about?”

“Ask me again in a week.”

“You really don’t know what it’s about?” William teases.

It carries an edge. Patrick quirks an eyebrow, the universal exasperated symbol for _you’re mildly annoying me_ , and William laughs. Patrick returns to the book. 

“Are you done with this?” William asks a short time later, in reference to Patrick’s dishes, and then, “And let me know when you’re done with that.” 

“I can be done with this,” Patrick replies, petulant. “I’ll help you clean up.” 

Patrick helps him move dishes inside and wash dishes, and afterward, Patrick sits across William’s thighs within a nest of clean bedsheets, knobby knees pressed into the mattress and William’s hands on his ass. Patrick strokes them both off and rolls against William’s palms. It’s quiet, even with the windows open and Patrick’s inadvertent noises, and William sighs contentedly and drags his pinkie finger up Patrick’s spine. Patrick whines against William’s teeth, and William asks, “Yeah?” 

They’re getting better at this. Patrick spends his free time in and out of bed learning what William likes and doesn’t like over the spring months, acquiring new tricks, and figuring out how to make it better for someone other than himself (and Pete, Patrick will admit to himself, reluctantly). 

He’s getting used to this. William touches him differently, still more hesitant than deliberate, and breaks the kiss before Patrick considers it over, teasing and leaving Patrick perpetually waiting for more, braced with anticipation. Patrick pulls him back with enthusiasm, mumbles words of encouragement, and makes the conventional satisfied noises. It’s not bad— just different. 

Patrick sighs with intent on the downstroke and breathes, “Yeah, feels good.” 

“Let me suck you off,”William whispers, and at Patrick’s hasty nod, William pulls Patrick’s hips to his and tips him backward into the pillows against the headboard. 

William kisses his forehead, the velvety skin between his collarbones, and each of his hips before he wraps his forearms around Patrick’s thighs and sinks his thumbs into the humid lines of Patrick’s bent hips. He presses the flat of his tongue to Patrick’s cock and lets his eyes flicker over Patrick’s chest, and Patrick fists his hands in William’s hair and blinks at the ceiling, heavy with expectation. With William’s tongue and William’s lips wrapped around his cock, Patrick could bite through his lip with the effort it takes to keep his mouth shut. 

William comes with his mouth on Patrick’s cock and his hand on his own, and Patrick follows shortly after, smooths his tongue over the sting of his teeth in his lip and twists his fingers in William’s hair, softer than he would bedsheets. 

“Okay?” William asks gingerly, and Patrick nods and reaches for him. He wraps his fingers around William’s thumbs and kisses the slight downturn of William’s mouth, and William ducks away from him and starts, “Oh, I— ” 

Patrick shakes his head. “I don’t care.” 

William stills for a moment before he pulls his thumbs from Patrick’s grasp and tangles their fingers together. Patrick kisses him and thinks it should always be like this, the soft, sweet, and sexy feeling that he’s only managed to drag out of William in the minutes after his orgasm. He thinks he shouldn’t mention it. It would ruin the ambience, so Patrick pulls William’s chest to his and moans intentionally.

William strokes his fingers over Patrick’s bicep and teases lightly, “Doesn’t bother you, huh?” 

Patrick shrugs and laughs under the studious look William gives him. “No, I mean— that’s a double standard, right?”

William tips his head to one shoulder like an attentive dog. “I don’t think that’s—”

He doesn’t finish the thought, and Patrick asks into the silence that’s fallen between them, “Can I shower before I head home?” 

“Why don’t you just sleep over?” William sits up in the bedsheets and adjusts his watch on his wrist. 

“What about work tomorrow?” 

“Tomorrow,” William informs him, “Is Sunday. No excuses, you’re stuck with me.” 

William’s mouth on his and William’s hands wrapped around the bony protrusions of his hips, Patrick laughs and breathes, “Fine. Fine, I give up; I’ll stay over.” 

With his cheeks flushed and his teeth in his lip, William looks pleased. “Still need to shower?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick confirms. “But I should tell you—” Patrick kisses him on the nose. “I like to shower alone.” He abandons William in a stupor on the bed and goes to shower. Patrick makes the shower as hot as he can stand it, and he’s comatose by the time William presses his damp chest against Patrick’s side and returns the kiss to the nose. 

_No time for change, no time for fun._

_It’s always been that way it seems,_

_One love begins, one comes undone. —_ Fine China

The following weekend, William takes him out for dinner with the rationale that he’s too tired from the work week to make anything worth eating. 

“You would be better off eating breakfast cereal for dinner,” William cautions, and although Patrick doesn’t find anything wrong with eating boxed cereal for dinner, he lets William take him out. It’s an excuse to get out of the apartment, spend money on someone else, and drink wine too indulgent to buy himself without the pressure of impressing anyone or getting wasted. 

William sets his glass on the white tablecloth and wipes at breadcrumbs stuck to the front of his shirt. He asks, “Did you finish the book yet?” 

Patrick shakes his head. “I’m almost done. I’m going to finish it tonight.” 

“How much do you have left?” William asks again. 

“Um—” Patrick pauses with his fork suspended over his plate and shrugs. “Between fifty and a hundred pages, I think.” 

“What’s it about?” 

Patrick shifts in his chair, suddenly slightly uncomfortable. “You can read it when I’m done— if you want.”

William makes a disinterested noise and tells him with a short laugh, “Maybe.” 

Patrick flashes him an impatient look across the table and after a moment, breaks the uncomfortable lull in conversation with, “Oh, I forgot— I wanted to ask you if you’ve ever asked Vicky about working on project development or to work on projects across departments, or— basically I just want to ask if I can do more.”

William rests his elbows on the tabletop and sighs. “I’ve never asked her, but you could. You forget I quit because there’s nothing new and there’s no upward momentum— for me, anyways, but all I do is, like, crunch numbers.” Patrick thinks for an instant and nods and William studies him and asks, “You’re bored already?”

“Not really,” Patrick replies. “I was just thinking that at home—” Patrick shakes his head. “I did a little bit of everything at the start-up in Boston. It wasn’t more but it was more challenging, you know? I also got to work with the students and I split a lot of the work with my friend. Funny that I used to complain about being behind on everything.” 

William tips his glass to Patrick and tells him pointedly, “You also worked more hours and spent more time doing shit you never got paid for. The benefit of having an easy job that pays on a salary is that is doesn’t consume your whole life.” 

“But I already told you, it doesn’t feel like work because I got lucky enough to do something I like.” 

“That’s not just luck— you have to give yourself credit there, and you still didn’t get paid enough for how much time you spent on projects outside of your job description.” 

“It was a start-up, there’s barely a job description,” Patrick argues, and tells himself to let it go. In his head, Hayley reminds him that William only has good intentions and makes a good defense. Patrick shakes his head and sighs. “The point isn’t the money, though. The point is that I get paid to do something I don’t mind, and while I do it, I get to do something I love.” 

It takes William a minute to process Patrick’s logic, and he says, “Yeah, so you do something you like during the day and something you love on nights and weekends.” William downs the rest of his drink while Patrick stares at him over the table. William asks, “Didn’t we already have this discussion?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees noncommittally and tells him suddenly, “I don’t think you’re wrong but I’ve already figured out what works for me.” 

William laughs at this. “You’re quick then— most people haven’t and never do. Do you think you’ll look for a new job? Something similar, maybe?” 

“No!” Patrick exclaims. “It was just something I was thinking. I’ll probably talk to Victoria about it. She’s been hinting that she might have a project I’d be interested in. I don’t know what it is.” 

William makes no mention of when he’s quitting or starting the search for a new job and Patrick wonders why he isn’t more open about it. It’s just like William to hide good things in his pockets and pull them out when he’s ready to share, to have his moves planned in advance and share only when something big happens. William shovels support towards Patrick’s career and only offers empathy and occasionally, decent advice. It perfectly bisects Patrick’s urges of ambition; William’s waning competitiveness is ultra-apparent in the small things. 

“Are you ready to go?” William asks finally, and after two glasses of expensive wine and energized by friendly discussion, Patrick nods, takes a final bite of his dinner, and lets William pay for the cheque. 

Back in William’s apartment, they watch a movie on the flat-screen television in the company of a shared wine tumbler, barely paying attention. William drags him to the bedroom afterwards, and tipsy and horny and having even more fun than usual, William sucks him off in bed after _Phenomena._

Patrick stays up to finish the book long after he should be asleep.

♥

Ask Patrick or, better yet, ask Pete when the unspoken agreement between them goes south, and they are likely to produce two different answers. Pete, with a little finagling, will assume that it was the first time he lies by omission. He is merciless in insisting that choosing to withhold information about the fiasco with Ryan doesn’t count, because the incident that supersedes it is premeditated. A blind fib becomes malicious when it can’t be twisted into truth.

Patrick will vow that is it something else. This is not a blind fib. Patrick is lying. 

Patrick blinks awake in the depths of the morning, sometime between three and four and febrile under the covers, the result of an exceptionally warm May. William sleeps curled up in the sheets, facing away from Patrick, and Patrick breathes a quiet sigh of relief and shoves the covers to his waist. Outside, it’s just starting to get light, Patrick can feel it, but it’s obscured by thick blinds in the windows and Patrick fumbles for his phone on the nightstand in the dark, squinting at the screen when it comes to life, the backlights that burn holes in his retinas. 

William hadn’t been exaggerating that the workweek was tiring. The office had hosted a demanding shuffle of deadlines and mistakes, and Patrick had drifted through the days in a state of semi-consciousness, eyes to the floor and brushing off Pete’s invitations to talk with minimal awkwardness. 

Now though, immersed in his exhaustion, he longs for Pete. Patrick rubs at his eyes, scowling. If he rubs them hard enough, he can see patches of yellow and blue fuzz behind his eyelids, obscuring his internal narrative and consequently pushing unwanted images into the deep recesses of his consciousness. Patrick presses his knuckles into his lower eyelids and procures the delusion that it’s Pete curled up next to him in bed, waiting for Patrick to settle back into the pile of covers and bury his face into Pete’s tan shoulders. 

Patrick dumbly enters the passcode to his phone. It unlocks with a click, and Patrick quickly flips it to silent and darkens the screen, afraid any noise will stir William. His eyes take a moment to adjust to the loss and Patrick fumbles his way to his messages with Pete. He thumbs over their exchanges briefly, then holds his breath and types out a message. 

_Are you out with Gabe?_

Patrick doesn’t exhale until the message is sent. It’s only eight in Boston, and Pete is sure to still be up, if he isn’t out. Patrick hopes in equal parts that Pete does and doesn’t reply. Patrick knows he’s never made a good decision under the influence of exhaustion, and it makes no difference. Patrick slides back under the sheets, phone in hand, and waits. 

_No,_ Pete replies shortly after. Patrick blinks at the phone and scrabbles with the bedsheets when his phone buzzes again. _Everything ok? Just call me_

William hasn’t moved within a centimeter in the time Patrick has been awake. Patrick slides out of bed silently, snatches his paper book and a box of cigarettes from the top of William’s dresser, and pads in bare feet to the balcony of the apartment. The screen door squeaks as it slides open, and Patrick grimaces. He opens it just enough to slip outside and shoves William’s elderly tricolor cat, Mimi, away from the door with his foot. 

“Mimi,” Patrick hisses as she makes a second mad dash towards the door. “Not the time.” He closes and latches the door behind him, safe from Mimi’s dexterous toes, and drops his phone and the book onto the small balcony table. Mimi blinks at him sullenly from the other side of the screen. 

Pete picks up on the second ring. 

Patrick grapples with the package of cigarettes nervously and lights one one-handed with the end between his teeth, phone pressed to his ear. Tentatively, Patrick says, “Hey.”

“Hey, what’s up?” Pete’s voice comes through the phone, soft and overwhelmingly familiar. Pete’s voice sounds like home and it should lose its allure, but instead, Patrick is blanketed by it. The tension buzzing under his skin is gone and he’s left feeling tender. He can deny Pete nothing. 

Patrick shifts in his chair and laughs under his breath. He lies, “I just wanted to say thanks for the candy.”

Pete throws himself across his couch. He feels small, and the room too large. He puts the phone on speaker to feel there’s someone else in the room. “Yeah?” Pete says softly, and laughs. “You’re welcome. What do you really want?” 

“I read the book.” 

Pete is silent for a moment. He arches off the bed just enough to reach for the switch on the lamp on the side table. Patrick sniffs, and Pete quietly asks, “Yeah?” 

Patrick swallows hard around the lump in his throat and against the back of his hand, Patrick smiles to himself. “Yeah, and, Pete, it’s really good. It’s— it’s really, really good.”

“It’s not too Duncan Trussell?” 

“Oh,” Patrick informs him acetously. “It was so Duncan Trussell, even for you.” 

“Stone cold,” Pete says. “You don’t even miss me.” 

Patrick laughs and feels himself thaw from the inside out. “More than you know, and it’s your turn to tell me something.” 

Pete hums. “What do you want to hear?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick replies with false indignation. “Your unwavering approval. Confirmation that I didn’t make the biggest mistake of my life. Talk to me.” Pete laughs gently and Patrick’s heart lurches in his chest. He takes a quick drag off the cigarette. 

“Things must really be shit if you want my advice,” Pete quips. 

“Things are not shit,” Patrick argues. “I’m just feeling neurotic. I don’t feel like myself lately.” 

“Can I be honest? You don’t sound like yourself.” 

Patrick exhales through his nose. “Not really what I wanted to hear. Tell me something else.”

“ Okay. I went out for breakfast with Mikey.” 

Patrick sinks his teeth into the inside of his cheek. He twists his mouth and swallows and assumes that if Pete felt the need to tell him, the implication is that the coffee date wasn’t platonic. It burns somewhere deep. The considering noise Patrick makes is crude, forced. “And?” Patrick asks, provocative. “Was it just coffee?”

“Do you care what the answer is?” 

Patrick’s cigarette changes hands. “No.” 

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Pete says. Patrick thinks he’s teasing.

A pregnant pause, and Patrick asks, confused, “Okay, so did you sleep with him or not? I’m not being inflammatory.” 

Pete laughs. “I told you, I’m not going to lie to you. That’s my answer.” Patrick blinks. Pete asks, “How’s William?”

Patrick wants to ask if he’s serious, if he’s supposed to be angry or if he should be laughing at himself like the victim of a poorly-executed prank. Patrick scrubs the cigarette out on the arm of the chair and contemplates making a point of it. He decides it’s too late (too early) for an argument and instead comes out with, “Can we not talk about that right now?” 

“I’m not being inflammatory,” Pete answers smoothly. “It’s your turn to tell me something.” 

Patrick presses his fingernails into his palms and replies shortly, “Yeah. Are we talking about the Mikey thing later?” 

“How’s work?” Pete asks. “Mine’s the same boring shit. You wouldn’t know you’d left.” 

Patrick stifles the snide response long enough to discuss at length the shows he’s seen in the last month, hints at Victoria’s mystery project, and promises to send Pete a link to an article he’s written. He’s certain that Pete knows his voice is tight, shaking slightly with trepidation and the absence of nicotine. Patrick’s eyes are swimming and the floor feels like it shifts beneath him.

Pete asks the right questions in all the right places, and when he’s spent, Patrick announces he’s going back to bed. Pete tells him he’s missed and Patrick replies with, “I miss you, too,” and, “Goodnight.” 

Patrick flips the phone over on the table beside him. The night feels stale, colder than when he’d first stepped onto the balcony, and restless, Patrick fishes another cigarette out of the box and sits with it until his eyes burn. He’d planned to sleep away the rest of the early morning hours, but daylight is readily settling in by the time he’s interrupted.

William leans out of the screen door in only his boxers and even in the partial darkness, Patrick can see that his wide eyes are filled with honest concern. 

“Hey,” William whispers. The screen door slides closed behind him and William clears his throat. “Are you alright?” 

Patrick fidgets with his burnt-out cigarette and the lighter and says, “Hey.” 

“Are you alright?” William asks again, and Patrick nods. 

“Yeah, I was just reading.” William gives him a quiet skeptical look, and Patrick continues, “I’m— let’s just go inside, I’m going to make some tea or something.” 

With his elbows on William’s counter and his hands around a ceramic mug, Patrick asks quietly, “Do you think soulmates are real?”

“Right now, at four-thirty in the morning?” William laughs, and when Patrick looks at him expecting a response, William makes a considering noise before he replies. “No, I think you just make a life with whoever you happen to love.”

Patrick sets the mug onto the counter and pulls a barstool from beneath the countertop. “Hmm,” is his only response.

“If you’re saying that you have to be both friends and sexually attracted to each other, what’s the chance that out of the seven billion people in the world, you meet your perfect match?” William explains. They’re silent for a moment and William continues, “And why spend all your time thinking about it? If there’s some predetermination element of having a soulmate, then you should find them regardless, right? Why, do you think soulmates are real?”

Patrick makes a stunted noise and answers all of William’s questions at once. “Don’t know,” he says and suggests, “But then there has to be some chance, right? Even if it’s small enough to be negligent?”

William lets his mouth fall open slowly. “Sure. Yes.” Patrick gives him a pathetic glance and William returns a sympathetic smile. “Just come sleep,” William urges. “You can sleep a few hours before it’s time to be up for the day— or you can sleep through the morning and the afternoon, too. Who’s going to tell you no?”

Satisfied with this, Patrick loops his arms around William’s neck and exhales feelings pressurized over months and months and inhales benevolence and cleanly-scented moisturizer. 

“Go sleep and you’ll feel better later,” William encourages. “I promise you.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees against his shoulder. 

“Are you okay if I stay up? It’s—” William peers at the digital clock on the television. “It’s like five.” 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Patrick agrees again. 

Patrick collects his phone, his tea, and the book from the table outside before he retreats to bed. He deposits them in a heap in the free space on top of William’s dresser and makes a conscious decision to forget about it until later in the morning. He sleeps into the early afternoon. 

William bumps one hip against the doorway of his bedroom at a few minutes past noon and asks, “Feeling any better?” Patrick shrugs, and William closes his fingers around a mug in his hands and concedes, “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to."

“I think so,” Patrick says blankly. He sits in the mess of the unmade bed with his legs folded and stares at the coffee in William’s hands. He reaches for the extra blanket at the end of the bed and pulling it over his hips, concedes,“I stayed up too late last night.” 

“Happens sometimes,” William agrees.

“God.” Patrick asks, “What time is it?” 

It must be hot outside, Patrick surmises from glittering yellow light from behind the blinds and William fully dressed in shorts and short sleeves. He feels better about the previous night’s conversation in the daylight but guilty for sleeping through most of a day. William grants him permission when he says, “Does it matter? Did you have plans?” 

“No,” Patrick agrees by contrast. “I don’t have plans.” He throws William a weighted, kittenish look and asks hopefully, “Come back to bed?” 

“You’re insatiable,” William tells him with mocking disbelief, and Patrick isn’t sure he agrees but laughs anyways. “I’m working on job interview stuff. I just came in to check up on you.” 

Patrick hums and glances over the tangled sheets and blankets surrounding him. “Thanks.” 

“Yeah.” William gives him half of a smile and asks, “Want to do me a favor?” 

“Sure.” Patrick throws his legs over the edge of the mattress. 

“Cut my hair? Just in front, just this long bit that grows faster than the rest.” 

Patrick makes a small, sharp noise and casts William an incredulous look. “I’m not sure I— I don’t really trust myself to do that.” 

William laughs and reaches for his dresser drawers. Patrick watches him shove his phone and the book to the side and swallows the urge to apologize. He’s handed a pair of scissors from the top drawer of William’s dresser, and William sits cross-legged on the bed across from him.

“I usually do it in the mirror, by myself,” William says. “It’s impossible to fuck up. I promise you can do a better job than I do.” 

Scissors in hand, Patrick squints at William’s hairline nervously. “How much, like a couple of centimeters? Are you sure you want me to do this?” 

“Yeah, that’s good,” William laughs. “No one will notice if it isn’t perfect.”

Patrick hums. “Why don’t you just leave it?” he suggests, but he already has strands of hair between his fingers and scissors poised in his hand. “Look down,” Patrick directs. 

Patrick cuts the offending lock of hair quickly and cleanly. He watches the fine hair fall to the duvet and brushes it to the floor. The scissors change hands and William grins. “There,” Patrick says, and then quietly, “And no one will notice if it isn’t perfect.” 

“No.” William shoves hair back from his face in the mirror and studies his reflection. He repeats, “It looks good. You did a better job than I do.”

♥

It takes one particularly warm week, the end of May phasing into the beginning of June, and Pete is sick of the heat of the summer in the city. The air is stuffy and humid at the same time, dust and soot from the sidewalk leave a clinging film on his ankles and the soles of his shoes, and Pete sits reluctantly next to toddlers and doting couples on the train and feels nothing but resentment towards his own bitterness. 

He goes to dinner with Mikey with some mild guilt. They plan for Friday night and by the time Pete has finished his second glass of wine, he is overwhelmingly grateful to have the long work week as an excuse to go home alone, curl up in clean sheets, and watch mindless television until his vision blurs with sleep. 

“We should do takeout and a movie at my place,” Mikey suggests. 

“Next week,” Pete replies two weeks in a row. “I want to try the new Thai place on Washington,” the first week, and, “I have too much to finish for work,” the second.

“Let’s do your birthday in Newport,” Gabe proposes. “Bring Mikey and we’ll keep it low-key and kick off the summer. Humor me. ”

“I can’t take time off from work right now,” Pete answers. “Maybe a weekend when I’m finished with this case.”

Gabe floods him with myriad questions and accusations. “You don’t want to do anything for your birthday? Are you doing something with Mikey? How are things going with Mikey?” 

Pete makes a noncommittal noise and shrugs. He says tightly, “They’re good.”

The subsequent silence is weighted, and Gabe clears his throat and asks, “Only good? What’s wrong, you’re usually jumping off the deep end by now.”

“It’s been like a month,” Pete counters sharply. “I’m trying to be practical about it, like— I don’t know, like an adult?” Following a second tense silence, Pete asks suddenly, “Actually, can I have the house to myself for a few days? You guys can come down Saturday or Sunday and, um— I’ll mention it to Mikey.”

Gabe seems desperate to find him company. “Invite Mikey,” Gabe urges. “We can do something another time.” 

_June, Year IV_

Despite Gabe’s persistence, Pete doesn’t invite Mikey to the Newport house right away. Pete drives to the beach house straight from the office Friday evening. He strips his pressed button-up in the car and pitches it into the backseat, and feeling freer, finishes the drive from the city to the island in just over an hour. 

The house is stuffy when he arrives, having not been touched since the weekend of Memorial Day. Pete opens every window in the house, leaves the sliding glass door to the deck cracked, and throws the upstairs doors open to breathe. The cross-breeze through the open windows is animated and refreshing, and Pete drops the rest his office-appropriate clothes to the floor in haste in exchange for a gelid shower. It’s a system-shock, slamming the reset like touching a live wire, and Pete feels better for it, washing off a week of filth from communting and lukewarm phone conversations with clients, Gabe, Patrick.

If Pete needs a compliment or endless endorsement, he is well-versed in who to call. He exchanges the cold shower for hot coffee, and while closing the lid on the ancient Mr. Coffee drip machine in the house, Pete says with the phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder,“Hi, Mama.”

She’s excited to hear from him, seemingly more so than anyone he’s spoken to recently, and Pete takes his coffee outside to sit on the deck and watch the sun sink below the water, the colors that bleed from the sky to the water and eventually disappear to be recycled the following morning.

“How are you?” she asks, and, “Do you have plans for your birthday?”

“No,” Pete replies. “For once. I have Gabe’s beach house to myself for the weekend.” 

“Okay,” she says, “And how are you?” 

“I’m—” Pete starts and laughs to himself. “I’m okay.” 

“You sound tired.” 

Pete pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin on his forearms. He stares at his coffee teetering on the edge of the patio table and then reaches for it. It’s sure to be lukewarm but he grabs at it anyways and holds it between his knees. He nods and sighs before he admits, “Yeah, I’m a little tired. I’m hoping a couple of days off will help.” 

“A couple of days,” she echoes, the scoff absent but glaring in her voice. “You only get eight days off in a month. It’s not enough. Do you have vacation days?”

“I’ve already used my vacation days traveling in January,” Pete tells her.“I’m going to start calling in sick.” 

“How was Paris?” she inquires excitedly, and Pete feels the deck slide out from under him. “How was Anna? Did you see anything good?”

Pete grins. “Still Anna, and I love the kids. It was fun, Mama; I should go more often.” 

“I need to see them,” she says, apologetic. “How is your friend?” 

“He seems good,” Pete tells her, his legs shaky and his extremities cold like the coffee in his hands. “It was good to see him.” 

“Adjusting well to the move?” 

Pete stares between the cracks in the deck and thinks about spilling it all to his mother: the relatively easy transition from friends to something between friends and boyfriends, calling it off and backsliding like it’d been planned from the beginning, and finally playing house for one blissful summer until everything more or less went to shit. It feels like fantasy and sounds like young love, but aching knees in his chest and listening to his mother on the other end of the phone, Pete feels older than he’s ever felt.

“It’s fun to be in love,” she would say in the discerning tone that comes with age, “Sharing it is not as fun.”

Pete would agree, but instead, he stretches in the chair and rises to his feet, grimacing. He pours the remains of his cold coffee over the side of the deck and says, “I don’t know. I think so. He seems happy.” 

“You’re not lonely at the house by yourself?” his mother asks, and Pete scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands and laughs to himself.

“I’m not lonely,” Pete assures her. “I might have friends over tomorrow— what do you think?” 

“I think you should always have people over,” she says. “You need to rewrite some things and people are good company.” 

Pete smiles to himself. “I think I will,” he agrees. “I’m going to get ready for bed. I’ll talk to you soon.” 

“Call me on Sunday,” she reminds him. “I love you.” 

“I will,” Pete promises. “Goodnight, Mama, I love you.” 

It never seems to get fully dark at the beach, never pitch black enough to hide figures on the sand or conceal walkers on the quiet road in front of the house, and Pete scans the shoreline for drunk pedestrians before he goes inside and returns with an old blanket and a Thermos half-full of White Zinfandel from Erin’s collection of refrigerated wines. With the dim light of the moon and porch lights from houses lining the beach from the other side of the dunes, Pete pads down the path through the grass to the water and down the sand to the private dock at the end of the beach. 

The dock is deserted, late enough for the sun to be above the water, but early enough that no one has come to use any of the mid-grade flat boats anchored beside much too late for anyone to be out on the water, and Pete folds the blanket against the dock, leaves his phone playing Caribou next to the Thermos filled with wine nearby, and lies prone across the dock to watch water inch towards the houses on the shore. 

Other than the music and Pete’s own breathing, the only surrounding sounds are the regular crashing of water against the sand. Listening to water beat against the bluffs and lapping the wooden underside of the dock, Pete falls asleep splayed across the splintering wooden slats until the early hours of the morning. 

He wanders back to the house sometime between midnight and sunrise. Guided by the flashlight on his phone, now mostly dead, Pete collects his belongings and shuffles through the sand and grass to the back deck of the beach house. The hose is left out, but Pete steps over it with sandy feet and wipes half-heartedly at the worst of the mess to avoid tracking it inside.

The master bedroom is stale and still pristine from the previous summer, unslept in and almost sterile. The pillows smell slightly of mothballs and Pete changes the sheets in a sleep-drunk stupor and reaches a state of unconsciousness in what seems like seconds. 

The next morning is cooler, blanketed in Kodachrome colors and much cooler than the previous day. Pete gets up in the early morning and eats, having skipped dinner the previous night, and then he calls Mikey.

“I’m at the beach for the weekend and— I just wanted to ask if you want to come down to the house for the rest of the weekend,” Pete says. He feels nervous, awkward over the phone like confessing a crush or talking to a distant relative. “We can just hang out and go for dinner in town or something. Swim tomorrow, too.” 

Mikey asks, “At Gabe’s?” 

“Yeah,” Pete replies. He swallows the apprehension and waits for Mikey’s response.

Mikey’s concealed enthusiasm is easily discernible through the phone. “Sure! Can you send me the address? I’m sorry but I don’t still have it from— last summer?”

“That’s okay,” Pete says quickly. “I’ll send it to you. You want to come down tonight?” 

“Yeah, you want to go out?” 

“Yeah, tonight,” Pete replies, feigned enthusiasm slipping closer to genuine excitement with each passing second. “Keep it casual, though, better to embrace the fact you don’t belong here then to fake being old money.” 

Mikey doesn’t laugh, and Pete wonders if he misses the joke. 

♥

Dinner at the seaport goes as well as anticipated, some awkward moments and the initial unpleasantness when Pete insists he isn’t drinking. 

“I’m not, but—” Pete shrugs and gestures to the bar. “You should get something if you want.” He wonders if he should offer to pay for it.

“Um, that’s alright,” Mikey says, and then abruptly, “Hey, my brother wants to know where you work.”

The laugh Pete forces is awkward. “Why?” 

“Don’t know,” Mikey answers. “Lawyer stuff?” Pete makes a disgruntled face and Mikey switches strings of thought faster than Pete can keep up without practice. “You’re not driving back up tonight, right?” 

“You’re asking if you can stay over,” Pete certifies, voice blank.

Mikey laughs and replies, “Yeah, was I being too subtle?” 

Pete forgets to laugh, thinking that Mikey sounds nervous, and fully sober, Pete takes him home, because the night was enjoyable and Mikey is hot in the _I look like I smoke cigarettes and I have a fast metabolism_ way, and not because he hasn’t been laid in a month and he’s feeling lonely. Mikey kisses him like he knows he can be in bed in an hour, and he’s all business, his fingers sliding into the front of Pete’s jeans. He’s not playful, or beautiful in the way that he needs to be kissed, and Pete wraps his fingers around Mikey’s slender (bony) hips and thinks for once it might be fun to fuck a man who knows what he wants. 

“Let’s—“ Pete starts, swallowing the groan from the feeling of Mikey’s tongue on his neck just inside the front door. “We can go up to the guest room.” 

Mikey nods in agreement, and they trip over each other on the stairs, leaving behind a trail of sneakers, shirts, and Mikey’s snapback. The guest room is cold but Pete is already too warm, under his clothes and under his skin, and Pete deposits his clothes at the end of the unadulterated bed and watches Mikey do the same. 

Mikey is skinnier with his clothes off, a thought that should be obvious but still floats across Pete’s conscious unprovoked. He files it away with the rest of the thoughts he has but will never tell anyone and instead forces himself to focus on everything in front of him. Mikey’s amalgamation of feminine and masculine qualities are arrestingly different, and Pete hesitantly admits to himself that touching Mikey will take more than one night to seem _right_ , comfortable, and gratifying. There’s a learning curve to sex that Pete hasn’t considered in years, and Pete is stuck between finding it refreshing and finding it disarming. Pete’s forgotten how much making out in bathtubs and the rumpled bedsheets of college students felt like networking. 

It’s a quick fuck and feels dirty— the kind of sex Pete would only fantasize about in college and never achieve. Circumstances have changed, expensive dinners as foreplay instead of kissing disheveled under the stairs in a stranger’s grimy basement, but Pete’s most basic sexual fantasies remain the same. 

Mikey doesn’t seem excited by kissing in bed, but he mouths at Pete’s neck wetly, grinds his cock over Pete’s stomach and Pete’s hands; there’s pre-come between Pete’s fingers and Pete absorbs Mikey’s exaggerated moans through his skin. Pete gets them off with a handful of well-timed tricks, and Pete comes with his fingers knotted in starched blue sheets and Mikey’s hair in his mouth, and decides then that he feels younger than he has in months. 

“Hey, happy birthday,” Mikey declares, and Pete drops his face into Mikey’s shoulder and laughs. “First time birthday sex?”

Pete quips, “No complaints.” 

“I’ve got one complaint— that it’s too fucking hot. How do you sleep like this?” Pete shrugs and Mikey tells him, “I’m going to take a cold shower.” 

“I might sneak out and sleep in the other room if it gets too hot,” Pete tells Mikey honestly, “But I’ll go after you,” and by the time Pete finishes contemplating the trajectory of his life under tepid water, Mikey is well asleep. Still damp, Pete pulls on clean briefs before he gets into bed, and at the bottom of the bed, Pete recognizes the rhythmic vibrations of his phone, still in the pocket of his shorts. Pete reaches for it. 

“Hey,” Pete whispers. He fumbles with the phone as he pulls back the sheets of the bed. 

“Hey,” Patrick mumbles, thick like he’s been asleep. “It’s your birthday here. Doing anything fun?”

“I’m just— we’re just going to hang out at the beach,” Pete tells him. He fails to elaborate on who’s keeping him company at the beach and secretly hopes Patrick assumes it’s Gabe. “I talked to my mom yesterday. Things are good.” A long pause and Pete asks fondly, whispered, “Did you wake up just to call me?"

“No,” Patrick lies. 

Pete hums and it comes out a little wilted. He makes a soft noise with his tongue, glances at Mikey’s limp body, and says hesitantly, “Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says softly. “Phone works both ways, you know.” 

“I know,” Pete replies, but makes no promises. “Goodnight, Gorgeous.”

♥

Patrick bumps into Victoria in the stairwell between the street and the office as he’s leaving for the weekend, and before he can say anything, Victoria quickly shuffles the papers in her hands and hands him a manila folder. 

“Real quick,” she starts. “I have something you might be interested in— a proposal for some expansion stuff. Look it over, take some notes on what you think, and make time to meet with me on Monday, yeah?”

Patrick comes out with, “Sure.”

“Thanks,” she says, and at Patrick’s blank look, continues, “All good things, don’t worry about it. It might not go anywhere, but— I just want to chat.” 

She leaves him with her usual smile, a little forced, and Patrick watches her long hair swing over her shoulders as she walks away. Still on the stairs, Patrick leans against the wall and frowns to himself, curious. He flips the folder open and feels the palms of his hands turn cold, and in the small stagnant space, Patrick laughs. 


	15. In which Patrick has a psychedelic trip.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I wait every year for summer, and it is usually good, but it is never as good as that summer I am always_  
>  waiting for.”— Martha Gellhorn

_June, Year IV.II_

On Monday morning, Patrick knocks on the doorframe of Victoria’s office. Her manila folder, stuffed into Patrick’s armpit, had once been slim and tidy on Friday and is now bulging and battered at the edges. Patrick gives her a small smile when she looks up from her desktop, and she invites him in, gesturing to the chair opposite her desk. 

Victoria folds her arms over her desk, littered with papers in single sheets and in stacks, previous months’ copies of the magazine piled in one corner of the desk and a plethora of brightly-colored Post-it notes covering the opposite corner, pages of glossy prints, and the edges of her desktop. Patrick looks over the surface and wonders how she gets any work done, but outside of meetings, Victoria spends every hour of her workday on the phone or pecking at her keyboard with manicured nails. Patrick has never seen her leave the office and would not be surprised to learn that she’s slept here some nights. 

Victoria smooths over a folded edge of the calendar covering most of the surface of her desk with her palm and gives Patrick a tight smile. She says, “Just tell me what you think.” 

Dropping into the chair, Patrick starts, “Okay, you want a publication dedicated to—” He flips the cover of the folder and looks over the first page. “‘Emerging artists only, and you’re asking me if it exists in the States.” Patrick places the folder on the desk carefully and leans forward in the chair. 

She nods impatiently and asks, “Yeah, what do you think?” She taps the folder with one fingernail and Patrick laughs, perceptibly nervous to a more empathetic eye. 

“The shortest answer,” Patrick tells her, “Is no. It doesn’t exist on a large scale.” 

Victoria replies, “I just want to know if there’s something close enough that I’m wasting my time investing anything else into this project. That’s all I really need to know. If it already exists and it works, then why am I putting my time into changing an existing market?” She throws Patrick a testy look. 

Patrick inhales and makes an attempt at being honest. “The biggest concern is always going to be that there’s going to be someone doing something similar, but they’re more local, usually, and usually online. I think it’s a possibility, but it would be a lot— someone’s passion project, definitely.” Victoria nods, and Patrick continues before she can object, “I brought you some samples of some old articles from the start-up mag. I know you have some from the portfolio in my app, but, um— not all of these are mine. They’re just examples I still have.” 

Victoria pulls the folder to herself and peers at the sample prints. “You think it’s doable?” 

Patrick nods after a moment, hesitant and taken aback by Victoria’s immediate enthusiasm. “Maybe.” 

“Can you get numbers for me?” Victoria gives him the same short smile she always does. “I need a project launch cost and I’m going to need to pay someone for this, yeah?” Patrick nods again and Victoria slides the folder back across the desk and finishes, “Have William do it. He’s already got numbers he can use as an estimate. Give him the proposal I gave you and your prints and tell him I’m not touching this until I know what it costs, and he’ll do it for you.” 

Patrick fingers the edges of the folder and thinks about asking William to run numbers on a hypothetical expansion project in the US. He nods in agreement, dumbly, and misses what Victoria tells him next. William is unlikely to be upset— he’s often carefree to the point of apathy, but the proposition still makes Patrick’s stomach burn. He also considers that William is quitting, and wonder if Victoria is aware that he knows. If her forced smile is any indication, Patrick guesses she is none the wiser. “Okay,” he says eventually. “I just have a couple more questions.” 

“Yeah, of course,” she replies. “Just make it brief.” 

“I’ll send you an email when I can, uh— put my thoughts together,” Patrick tells her after a blunt back and forth about immediate logistics and project overtime. He laughs, and Victoria’s tight expression doesn’t change. Patrick slides papers back into the manila folder and stands to leave.

“Don’t worry about it,” Victoria assures him, days too late. Patrick is already invested, obsessive about problem solving, and braced for pushback. “It’s no big deal if nothing happens. I just want to play around and see if we get anywhere.” 

Patrick bids her a good afternoon and says as he’s leaving, stepping through the door on his way out, “Sorry.” He shakes his head and laughs from beneath his tongue, muffled. “But I have to ask— did you give this to me for any particular reason?” 

Victoria looks at him funny. “You’re the one with start-up experience, right?” 

“Right,” Patrick says after a moment. He taps the doorframe with his knuckles and clutches the overfilled folder to his chest. “Thanks.” 

_July, Year IV_

Gabe delivers the timeline of events for the proposal and consequent engagement over the phone the morning after it happens, before the announcement is considered public, and Pete, for lack of vocabulary capacious enough to describe his reaction, freaks out. Pete finds little meaning in the fact that Gabe and Erin have been exclusive, close, and committed for years. It doesn’t matter that Gabe and Erin are the type of easy couple that give Pete some smoldering spark of hope for himself. He feels orphaned, like Gabe’s engagement is an act of betrayal consonant with cheating. 

Pete swallows the intensity of his feelings long enough to congratulate the both of them and impart his confidence. He’s excited in a way, but after ending the call, Pete replays his friendship with Gabe in reverse within the afternoon and mourns the winter of his youth over a vodka soda in his kitchen late that night, Mikey asleep in his bedroom. 

He didn’t tell Mikey about his freshly-developed anxiety with he’d called him almost immediately after hanging up on Gabe. Pete had proposed take-out and a movie, the universal invitation for a booty call, or at worst, a pity fuck. Mikey had agreed, and Pete had pulled him into the bedroom only minutes after he’d showed up on Pete’s doorstep. They spent most of the evening in bed, Pete’s phone buzzing on the nightstand. Pete had thoroughly ignored it, content with distraction in exchange for a fleeting sense of normalcy. 

Pete strips and replaces the sheets afterward, a recent ritual akin to scrubbing off the dirty feeling that still comes from sleeping with Mikey. Launder, rinse, and repeat. 

He falls asleep eventually, pulled into slumber by clean sheets in his own bed and Mikey’s slack face. He sleeps like he feels lately, tense and restless, and makes it through only a couple of hours before he peels back a singular flat sheet from his shoulders and pads to the kitchen to engage in some form of hydration and double-check the time. He does the mental math while pouring the dregs of a can of Canada Dry into the bottom of a stemless wine glass, and then he reaches for his phone for the second time in a day, more out of habit than necessity. 

“It’s awesome about Gabe and Erin, yeah?” Patrick asks minutes later. They’ve looped through their usual greetings and exhausted all routine topics, and Pete spills the news because if he bottles up secrets any longer he’ll bubble over when it all comes out like a shaken can of seltzer. 

“Yeah,” Pete breathes, feeling drained as a result of divulging a secret, and still his heart rate increases. “If anyone calls you, just pretend no one told you. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a secret.” 

There’s silence on the other end of the phone, as if Patrick is considering the result or remembering something fondly. Patrick finally says, “I can keep a secret,” and then, “Why’re you up so late? Did you go out with Gabe to celebrate?” He asks like he’s unsure if you celebrate an engagement and at the moment, Pete isn’t sure either. 

Pete stares at the remains of his drink at the bottom of the glass and thinks of Patrick’s divorced parents and dismissal of marriage as an obsolete societal norm. He feels feverish. “No,” Pete replies quickly. He takes a hasty sip from his glass. “I, um— I have someone over.” 

Patrick asks in light torment, “Who?” 

“Come on,” Pete says. He hopes it comes out as teasing. “You don’t need me to say it.” His face is burning, exacerbated by the alcohol and Patrick’s incessant need to hear Pete admit they aren’t together. Pete is hesitant in accepting that he finds it arousing. Patrick laughs and Pete’s abdominals tighten where they’re pressed against the edge of his kitchen countertop.

“Mikey?” Patrick asks. His raised eyebrow is deafening and his tone drips with unintentional judgment. The short hair on the back of Pete’s neck prickles instantly. 

“Maybe,” Pete answers lightly. “I’m neither confirming nor denying.” 

Patrick laughs again. “Why not?” 

“I told you,” Pete says, suddenly frustrated. “I don’t want to lie to you. I want to tell you everything, but I can’t. It’s not fair.” He hopes it doesn’t come out as whiny, or self-righteous, knowing that Patrick operates in a morally grey area purely by accident. Pete crosses his legs against the barstool and holds his face in his hands.

“Not fair to who?” Patrick asks carefully. “I don’t see how lying has anything to do with this. It’s not a competition.” 

“Yeah,” Pete replies, threatening uncomfortable laughter. He swallows and collides with a stubborn realization that he’s been more resentful than he’s been letting himself believe. It emerges as a redundant stream of consciousness, “And I told you I didn’t want to know, because honestly, I just feel bad about it later, and I know if I told you I’d feel bad about it later. I feel like you’re going to be mad about it either way.” 

Staring at his ceiling and itching for the argument that has been six months in the making, Patrick throws one knee over the other and soaks in the uncomfortable but refreshing, almost sexual, feeling of being called on his shit. Patrick twists his fingers around a strand of hair and says, “I’m not mad. It’s pretty obvious you’re fucking. I’ll get over it. Why won’t you just tell me if I already know?” 

“No,” Pete snaps. “That’s not the point.” 

Patrick laughs then, and Pete uncrosses his legs and wishes he’d laughed earlier. It sounds mocking coming from Patrick, and Pete can hear the eye roll that accompanies it when Patrick tells him, “I’m more miffed that you’re blowing me off about the Mikey thing than I’d be if you’d just be honest about the Mikey thing.” 

Pete is suddenly exhausted beyond his own comprehension. He sighs and says without thinking, “Then maybe we should stop talking for a while.” Pete’s heart thumps once in his chest. He feels nauseous and asks, voice small, pinched at the back of his throat, “Patrick? This isn’t working. I think we should take a break from talking for a while.” 

Patrick feels his stomach drop, liquidize, and ooze through the soles of his feet.He hums, a cold and disbelieving noise, and deadpans, “A break.”

Pete clears his throat and tries to explain, but, “I can’t explain it. It’s just with Gabe getting married and everything’s different— like, if I only get to see you—” Pete pauses and swallows hard around his tongue. “And maybe if we’re both going to try something else, then—” The words trail off like he’s run out of breath, suffocated by a reluctance to verbalize his thoughts. 

Patrick speaks it for him. “Then maybe we skip the part where we pretend we’re friends and just don’t talk at all.” 

Pete itches to take it back. He’s bitter that Patrick says it like it’s nothing, and it’s fuel to agree. “Yeah,” Pete admits, and tries, “I don’t know. Not forever, just until we can be friends again.” He says this as if he has developed plans for friendship, a timeline of actions that encourage platonic admiration and prevent turning simple matters into a romanticized narrative that Pete will stare at the streetlights outside his bedroom window and dream about, day or night. 

The animosity hosted in the undercurrent of Patrick’s tone dissipates. “Sure,” Patrick says smally. “Okay.” Patrick chokes through a fragment of an apology before Pete interjects. 

“I’m sorry,” Pete sighs. “I don’t know what else to do right now.” 

The goodbye is awkward at best. Pete ends the call with a decisiveness he extracts from the pits of his stomach— it must be the part poisoned by too much alcohol in previous years, or mind-numbing with prescriptions belonging to himself or others, to hang up the phone without asking Patrick if feels okay. He feels like a coward, but regardless, he doesn’t want to know the answer either way. He watches his phone screen light up when he plugs it into the wall and already misses the staggered texts that come as replies to his own incessant ramblings. 

Half of his drink is left. Pete pours it straight into the drain with emphasis and leaves the glass upside-down in the sink. Too tired to deal with falling asleep again in the bedroom, Pete lies perfectly still across his couch in the stale air of the air conditioning and stares at the ceiling until sleep comes to grab him. 

_I guess they really got the best of us, didn’t they? —_ Fine China

Patrick drops himself to the worn cushions and flings his ankles over one arm of his couch. It’s still early in the morning, before Patrick has had a real change to shower or eat, and any desire to do so is gone, along with the glacier-sized pocket of his heart he’s reserved for the mixed bag of emotions involving Pete. Patrick tucks his elbow under his head and after thinking for a moment, face twisting, tells William solemnly over the phone, “I think Pete and I are done talking for a while.” 

“Mi dispiace, tesoro mio. Vuoi parlarne?” _I’m sorry, do you want to talk about it?_

“No.” Patrick drops his shoulders over the arm of the couch, back arched and shoulders exposed. He thinks about the afternoon plans he’d made with William and hopes they’re cancelled under the extenuating circumstances. He is sure he is incapable of critical thought, unavailable for decision-making. 

William unthinkingly disregards Patrick’s reluctance to talk about the matter and asks, “When was this?” 

“This morning,” Patrick answers.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” William says, and Patrick makes a face. “Should I still come over? Do you want company or do you want some time alone?” 

Patrick presses his thumbs into his eyelids. He cannot remember a time in his life where he was relieved to have options, and even now, Patrick stares at the colored spots behind his closed eyelids and resents being given a choice. “I think I’m just going to, like, waste away and watch eighties movies in bed alone, like a real breakup.” Patrick pauses and sighs, “I’m sorry.” 

William laughs quietly. “That’s okay,” he says, and then as if remembering the appropriate response, “I hope you feel better.” 

“Maybe we can do something later tonight,” Patrick offers. “Maybe I’ll feel a little better.” He’s awaiting the second half of the depression stage of Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief— the one that involves staring at the ceiling and yearning to be held. That stage had lasted a week after Greta and they hadn’t even been friends by the end of it. There are no rules for breakups, and Patrick can’t make an estimation, but he makes a loose hypothesis that this time will be similar. Patrick opens his eyes and tells himself he can’t imagine being emotionally attached to anyone ever again. 

“I’ll come over for dinner,” William assures him, and the decision leaves Patrick feeling deflated. 

“Yeah,” Patrick sighs again. “That sounds good. Thank you.” 

Patrick spends the rest of the morning and most of his afternoon curled up against the headboard of his bed, eyes lazily drifting between his phone and an episodic sitcom and nursing a collection of hot teas. The mugs grow cold around the end of each episode, and Patrick makes enough trips between the kitchen and the bedroom to wear a path through the floorboards. William texts him around dinnertime, while Patrick’s laptop is on its fifth consecutive charge of the day, and Patrick reluctantly agrees to host in exchange for a meal and some social interaction. 

Patrick answers William’s knock on the door in an ancient hoodie. There’s a stain across the embroidery on the left breast and the ends of the sleeves are tattered. Other than the sweatshirt, Patrick wears only boxer shorts, and his face is puffy from being warm and still for most of the day, and less so from the occasional bout of moist eyes. He presses his burning face into William’s chest and hangs off William’s shoulders, trying to show appreciation with less words. “You’re too nice to me,” Patrick tells William as he retreats. William hands him a paper bag filled with food. “You’re so sweet and I’m so gross right now.” 

William kisses his forehead and Patrick’s flushed, blotchy cheeks. “You look absolutely fine. Go shower and I’ll reheat your dinner.” Patrick entangles him in another long embrace before he goes. 

Patrick returns from the shower in fresh clothes and feeling slightly less like the undead. He takes up residency on the couch and tucks into the bowl of food William hands him like a stray dog. It’s taken a gentle reminder and the smell of warm food for Patrick to remember he’s hungry, that he hasn’t eaten all day, and that he never feels worse than when he’s hungry. He throws soft eyes toward William in the doorway and says, “I’ve been watching this show all day, can we finish it?” 

William brushes damp hair from Patrick’s face and kisses his forehead. “That can be arranged,” he tells Patrick. William throws himself into the throw pillows on the opposite end of the couch. He crosses his arms in his lap and lets their ankles tangle on the center cushion. He considers Patrick with a worried expression, and when Patrick looks up from his food and raises an eyebrow, William inquires, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Patrick shrugs. William seems insistent on getting him to talk. “What happened?” 

“I don’t know,” Patrick replies, staring at the top of his foot. William gives him a sympathetic look. “I just— it’s not really anything in particular. Just a lot of little things. I don’t think I did anything.” 

“I’m sure you didn’t,” William assures him. 

Patrick shovels food around in the bottom of the bowl and laughs coolly. “I can be mean when I want to, but this wasn’t— not one of those times.” 

“I’m sure you can,” William replies easily, and Patrick feels the cold twinge of annoyance creep up the center of his spine. He sends a dirty look across the couch. William appears oblivious and asks, “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Mouth full, Patrick tells him, “I don’t really want to talk about it.” 

“You should take some time off,” William says. He stands and Patrick eyes him from the couch, frowning. William strides to him, two steps at most, and presses a kiss to the top of his head. “It doesn’t have to be now, but think about it. You and me, a couple of days in Foce Verde next weekend or something. Come on,” he insists at Patrick’s cynical stare. “It will be fun.” 

Patrick slides his hand behind William’s neck and kisses him softly. He reaches for the remote on the coffee table and resists the urge to shrug. “Yeah. I’ll think about it.”

Patrick tells him yes later, his head on William’s chest and still damp from his second shower of the evening. 

William eyes him carefully and asks, teasing, “Feeling any better?” 

Patrick scrapes his incisors over the flat line of William’s jaw and presses his hips to William’s thigh. “Maybe,” he says. 

Patrick spends his weekend off in Foce Verde between tipsy and undeniably intoxicated, be it on alcohol or sex or cigarettes stolen out of the top of William’s duffel bag. He gives himself the work work to desecrate himself over letting Pete slip through his fingers over a year and the outcome of an early morning phone call, and then he participates in the very definition of, as Gabe would call it, a rebound. Patrick and William spend the three days drinking and taking long walks down the beach and around the local community, and otherwise spend the hours of the day in the cold hotel room, the deadbolt set in the door. They throw themselves at each other all weekend, and Patrick lets William drag him into bed and into bar bathrooms and into the hotel shower with a stupid grin and without a word of resistance. 

William fucks him for the first time in the hotel in Foce Verde, and Patrick pointedly does not think about giving everything up to Pete, letting Pete take control and worship him, in ways he’s not comfortable with otherwise. He thinks of Pete, purposefully spreading him out on the bed just to look, to torture himself before Patrick begs him to touch. Pale skin melting together on even paler white sheets adorning their hotel bed, Patrick wants it in a way that he hasn’t felt yet with William. A little wild and a little anxiety-induced, William fucks him sweet and shallow, and Patrick comes with his fist in his mouth, stifling a gasp. William fucks him through it, gets himself off, and flops down next to Patrick. Patrick pulls William’s face to his, tries to ignore William’s elbows in his stomach and the way they don’t quite fit together, and whispers in his sex-induced haze, “Again.” 

William leaves the room to get takeout breakfast after spending most of the next morning getting each other off with hands and mouths and bodies. Patrick lays between hotel bedsheets while he’s gone, perfectly naked, and listens to his sister’s soliloquy on the other end of the phone. He fingers a cigarette, just for something to hold, and hears, “God, I got your pictures of you in Foce Verde.” 

“Yeah?” He twirls the cigarette between his index and middle finger, an old party trick, and absentmindedly hopes Megan can’t hear that he’s sex-drunk and half asleep. 

“You know he’s too tall for you,” Megan tells him flippantly. “He’s cute, though. What happened with the other one?” 

“That’s—” Patrick tries. He considers correcting her and reminds himself that at the end of the day she only means well, and besides, simmering in the aftereffects of his orgasm, he can’t be bothered. He comes out with, “Don’t know if you’ve heard but I no longer live on the east coast, so— and it also means you’re eating into the last acceptable hours for me to sleep.” 

Megan ignores him. She hums and asks, “Does he have a big dick?” 

Against his better judgement, Patrick answers, “Which one?” And then, “ _Shit.”_ He laughs. “Fuck off.” 

She laughs. “Don’t say anything, I’ve got my answer,” she says, and finishes with, “You didn’t ask, but I think you and Pete look classier together.” 

“Classier,” Patrick echoes, playing dumb to mask his mild irritation with his sister’s intrusive questions. He rolls to his stomach and sighs. “Jesus, Megan, I don’t want to talk about this.” 

“We should really talk about this.” 

“No,” Patrick groans. “It’s too early.” 

She cackles through the phone and Patrick rolls his eyes and grins. “It’s like noon there,” she says shrilly, and then, “Do you need anything? I’ll send you something, just let me know.” 

“I’m good,” Patrick sighs. “I’m really good, but thank you,” he says, and stretches his arms above his head. “Listen, Megs, can I call you later in the week when I’ve got time to talk?” She agrees, and Patrick tells her he loves her and settles back into the pillows to sleep away the rest of his morning. 

William makes a reservation for an expensive restaurant near the beach for Saturday night, and Patrick takes his time to complain about it in the hours leading up to the dinner. He has to wear a suit jacket and comb his hair the right way, more effort than he’s put into his appearance in months, and he secretly enjoys it. He enjoys it even more when William pulls Patrick to his chest as they’re leaving, presses his nose to Patrick’s clean hair, and tells him he looks good, that they can skip dinner if he wants. 

“It’s better if you wait,” Patrick murmurs as William’s thumbs find the spine of his hips under the waistband of fitted jeans. 

Over dinner, Patrick twirls his fork in his hand and peers around the restaurant. It’s high-end, but not stuffy, a mix of people wearing a more social version of business casual and the latest Trussardi summer collection. His jacket feels tight across the shoulders. Patrick swallows and looks over the table at William. 

“What’s wrong?” William asks. 

“Nothing.” Patrick shakes his head and says, “I hate to ask this right now, but Victoria wants me to ask if you can run a cost estimate on this project she gave me.” 

William takes a moment to register the request, an abrupt change of subject from the Crenshaw chord progression Patrick had been ranting about only minutes earlier. He gives Patrick a curious look. “What’s the project? Is it something new?” 

Patrick shrugs and answers, “Yeah, I guess. She wants to work on a US publication for, um— she calls them ‘emerging artists.’” 

William laughs. He nods once, emphatically, and discloses, “I think she’s been wanting to work on something like that for a while.” His eyes catch Patrick’s unreadable.

Patrick abandons his dinner and folds his hands in his lap beneath the table. He cracks each of his knuckles with the opposite hand and studies William’s face across the table. William doesn’t offer any further insight, working through the remains of his plate, and Patrick frowns. He asks, “Well, if I give you the details can you get the numbers for me?” 

William shakes his head, soft locks of hair falling in his eyebrows. “Sure, that’s easy,” he says around a mouthful of food. “But what do you think about the project?” 

Patrick catches his eyes over the table and feels himself flush. “Like if I think it’s a good idea? I don’t know,” Patrick starts defensively, “I told her I wanted more and this is what she gave me. Who knows if it will go anywhere.” Patrick shovels food into his mouth, waits for William to speak, and interrupts, “I know she only gave it to me because I used to live there and with the start-up and shit. I don’t care. I didn’t think you’d care.” 

“I know,” William tells him with emphasized understanding. “I’m asking if it’s something you’d want to work on. You shouldn’t just take a big project because you want more work. You’re probably going to get overtime. Do you want that?” 

Patrick is unsure of how to respond. He sets his fork upside-down on the plate. “Yes,” he says, sounding more like he’s guessing. “She gave me an out, and I would have told her if I—” 

“I know,” William repeats gently. “No one’s ever asked you if you like your work? I’m just looking out for you,” and with that, a feeling of heavy guilt settles beneath Patrick’s chest. He must appear upset, because William touches his arm across the table and gives him a sympathetic look. 

Patrick decides to ditch talking about himself altogether. He leans across the table, inhales composure, and tries to be engaging. “What’s the job search looking like?” 

“I’m taking the first week of September off and trying to schedule all the interviews for then.” William adapts to the clumsy change of subject more deftly the second time. 

“That might actually work out really well,” Patrick replies, surprised. “How many?” 

William fishes the fruit out of his drink with two fingers and once Patrick looks, he can’t tear his eyes away from it. The ice clinks in the glass, too loud for Patrick’s sensitive ears, but he takes it all in anyways and resents feeling implosive. “I don’t know,” William says. “More than five but less than ten, and if I stagger them, I can do the good ones at the end of the week. I need practice. I think it’s going to be good for me.”

Patrick hums in reply. William’s fingers close around the cherry stem in the glass and Patrick is crudely reminded of feeding Pete cherries by the stem off the bar in a high-end bar in Newport— high-end in terms of food and atmosphere, but some of the worst mixed alcohol Patrick has ever had the misfortune of ingesting. Pete had tied knots in all of the cherry stems with his tongue and handed them back to Patrick, and Patrick, tipsy, had felt like he was going to swallow his own tongue. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Patrick blurts out. “We can practice.” He wants a cigarette, or another drink, or to roll a joint and smoke it staring into the damp alley below his apartment. He needs to loosen up; he needs to get William to smoke with him. William looks concerned, and Patrick sits back in his chair and insists, “I’m fine.”

At the end of the night, contented and bordering on tipsy, they split the cheque.

♥

Back in Boston, Pete stares out the window of his apartment over his laptop and watches children get off the school bus. They totter down the steps and hop over the curb together before beginning the short walk down the sidewalk from the corner of the street. Public school classes ended almost a month ago, but Pete doesn’t think of it. The flowers and trees lining the sidewalks behind someone else’s children are bright and green, but somehow the colors don’t seem as bright as he recalls. Pete chews on the end of his thumb absently and goes back to typing. If nothing else, the lack of company most days gives him ample time to work on finalizing edits in the book and beginning submissions. 

“What?” Pete snaps into the phone minutes later, after swiping blindly at the screen to answer Gabe’s incoming call. 

“What’s the matter with you?” Gabe asks, offended.

“Nothing. You want something from me,” Pete says, like it’s simple fact. There’s a pause, and Pete feels momentarily guilty for snapping. His day hadn’t been particularly long or dreadful, with the exception of a rejection with a vague excuse when he’d asked Mikey if he wanted to come over in the evening.

“Yeah,” Gabe says. “I need help with wedding invites. Erin gave me all of them to do myself, and there is like, millions.” 

“I’m busy.” 

“With what?” Gabe scoffs. “Is Mikey over?” 

Pete feels his chest tighten in annoyance. “No,” he replies. “I’m working on my queries for the book, but— fuck you, too, I guess.” 

Another scoff from Gabe and he begs, “I’ll buy you dinner out after. I know you don’t want to drink but let’s just get dinner.” 

“I could be convinced,” Pete drones, but he hedges before he agrees, scanning the half-finished query letter glowing on his laptop screen. He saves the email as a draft as he promises to be on Gabe’s doorstep within an hour.

“Can you fix your mood before you come over?” Gabe asks. 

They spend most of the afternoon on the invitations, Gabe stuffing envelopes and Pete adorning envelopes with return address labels. Gabe has a baseball game in the background, but Pete doesn’t pay attention to it. He’s sure he will hear about it later. 

Pete sighs to himself and counts the few envelopes still in front of Gabe in his head. He asks, “Where are we going for dinner?” 

“Fuck,” Gabe says, bored. “I don’t know. Tia’s?” Pete nods in reply, exhausted. 

Tia’s is less crowded than Pete expects for a Friday night. The outdoor patio is warm from the afternoon sun reflecting off the waterfront, and they pick a quiet table on the edge with a decent view of the harbor. Pete pulls his sunglasses down to the bridge of his nose as he sits, and Gabe bribes him into ordering a drink with his dinner. It’s more sugar than alcohol, and Pete sips between his cocktail and his glass of water through conversation over food, until he goes to reach for his wallet and feels a hand on the back of his shoulder. Pete whirls around expecting to meet a client or an old coworker, or even a girl from college, and instead meets Hayley’s eyes. 

Pete feels his chest tighten and comes out with, “Oh my God, hey,” before he remembers to grin. “How are you?” 

“I’m good!” she exclaims. Straight white teeth and dyed hair assaulting in color, Hayley gives the impression of being both a sweetheart and absolutely untouchable. It’s the reason Patrick loves her, and it’s one of the many things Pete fears about her, a single bullet point in the list of reasons they’d never grown close, even while she’s friends with Erin and extremely close with Patrick. Pete knows she and Patrick still talk; Pete wonders if she’s heard of what an awful long-distance emotional boyfriend he’s been, breaking it off to give himself permission to fuck someone else. 

Hayley’s eyes hold no semblance of judgment. She has a friend with her. She’s tiny, and she stands behind Hayley’s right shoulder with an unassuming smile, thin blonde hair falling straight over her shoulders to meet her waist. Hayley gestures to her friend and then to the table. “We just grabbed dinner, and we’re pre-gaming now, then heading off to a friend’s party. I just— I thought I would say hello. I haven’t seen either of you in forever.” 

Pete looks between Hayley and her friend and supplies plainly, “Things are good.” Behind him, Gabe nods. 

“Nothing new?” Hayley prods.

Pete and Gabe share a glance. Pete laughs. “Not really.” 

Hayley fixes him with a prompting look. “Patrick said you finished the book,” she says, and Pete feels his face pale. He hopes it’s hidden beneath his sunglasses. 

“Yeah,” he admits, “A little while ago,” and laughs sheepishly. 

Hayley’s grin widens. “That’s fantastic!” Pete thanks her, dismissing it with an awkward wave and a tight smile, and seeming to recognize she’s intruding on something she doesn’t understand, Hayley reiterates, “Well, I just wanted to say hi. I’ll see you soon, and Gabe, say hi to Erin for me!” 

“Will do,” Gabe replies. It comes out drier than intended. 

Hayley leaves them with a final wave. Her friend lifts a hand from behind her without speaking a word, and as soon as Hayley steps past the hostess, Pete drops his face in his hands. When he emerges, he asks, sounding out of breath, “Do you think she’s—?” 

“Out of the loop?” Gabe asks in reply. “Yes. Taunting you? No.” 

Pete makes a disgruntled face. “We haven’t talked in like a month.” 

“Yeah, and you haven’t done anything post-breakup except fuck around with Mikey.” Pete throws Gabe a dirty look over the table, and Gabe protests, “I don’t know what you want to call it, but you’re not avoiding everything Patrick-related for the rest of your life.”

Pete is convinced that he can, and likely will. He laughs and rolls his eyes. “I’m supposed to be taking a break from drinking.” Gabe eyes Pete’s glass on the table and follows the curved edge of the table to meet Pete’s eyes beneath his sunglasses. Pete’s eyebrow twitches. “Make no fucking mistake, though, that was my cue. I’m getting another drink,” Pete tells Gabe assuredly. “I need a fucking drink and then maybe another.”

Gabe doesn’t argue. They leave a generous collection of folded bills on the table in lieu of asking for a cheque and make an exit to the open air bar conveniently located across the street. The bar is busier than Tia’s, spilling over with intoxicated young adults and groups of older men in brightly colored polo shirts, and Pete is thrilled to join them. “Busy,” Pete notes with dispassion. “I don’t know what I want.” 

Gabe produces the last of his crumpled bills from his back pocket and throws it towards Pete. “Whatever you get, get me one, too, yeah?” 

“I don’t want to be trashed later,” Pete says, and snatches the money from the surface of the table before he squeezes through the maze of tables towards the bar. Ordering the drinks seems to take an infinity, and Pete obsesses over Hayley’s implications while waiting for the bartender to make two cocktails. He’s too engrossed in his thoughts to immediately notice when the bartender sets the glasses down in front of him on the bar, and when Pete notices, he mumbles a thanks and tells the bartender to keep the change. 

When he returns to the table, Pete sets the sweating glasses down on the table and wipes loose hair from his forehead with the backs of his knuckles. Still standing, Pete starts, “Do you really think—?” 

Gabe grabs Pete’s elbow. “Sit down.” 

Pete drops into the chair and pulls his drink to his chest from the table. He thinks for a moment, statue-still other than unconscious blinking, and then says, “I didn’t want it to be a debate. I don’t want this infiltrating every fucking moment of my life. I just wanted it to be separate things.” 

“Do you think you made things worse involving Mikey, then? What did you think was going to happen?” Pete gives no response. “Do you want to talk about this?” Pete shrugs, and Gabe orders, “Drink your drink.” 

Pete fixes Gabe with a challenging look and throws back an inch of his drink. It burns, and Pete makes a pained face and coughs. He wipes his nose on the back of his hand and asks, “Do you have to go home tonight?” 

Gabe laughs. “Eventually.” 

Pete leans across the table and very carefully insists, “Get drunk with me.” 

“I thought you weren’t getting trashed tonight.” 

“Changed my mind,” Pete retorts. “Get drunk with me.” 

“No,” Gabe counters, “But I will babysit while you get drunk.” He extends his hand across the table to shake. 

“Deal,” Pete say, and grabs Gabe’s hand. “Next one is one you.” 

Gabe is an excellent babysitter. Gabe buys him vodka over tequila (“Truth serum,” Gabe tells him, and slides the shot glass over the table.) and staggers it with water at regular intervals. He pockets Pete’s sunglasses and wallet, he herds Pete away from everyone else sitting at the bar, and he promises to split the ride home whenever Pete is ready to leave. They spend another two hours at the bar, until Pete looks at him cross-eyed, and Gabe checks his watch and asks, “Are you ready to go? Do you want to go home or do you want something to eat?” 

Pete stares at him and blinks Gabe’s face into focus. “I’m just going to go to the bathroom,” Pete says definitively. He shoves the chair backwards and stumbles to his feet, leaning on the table. Fingers grasped around the back of the chair, Pete totters against the chair, and Gabe reaches for him, nervous. 

“Still good?” Gabe asks. 

“Yeah.” Pete wipes at the corner of his mouth, the crystals of sugar stuck there from earlier in the night, and wanders off to the men’s room with Gabe following closely behind. 

Pete shoves the door of the men’s room open. It sticks against the door frame from the summer’s humidity, and Pete kicks at the corner and huffs out a frustrated laugh. Gabe lets the door fall closed against his back and prepared to take in the following scene.

Pete bends over the sink and splashes water over his face with cupped hands. He watches the water drip back down the drain, running rivulets over his cheekbones and through his eyebrows, and Pete leans over the wide marble counter to stare in the mirror. The bathroom smells of floor cleaner and cigarettes and Pete feels nauseous. His reflection swims, and Pete grimaces and says aloud, “Yeah, just fuck him, right?” 

Gabe leans his thighs against the counter. “Do you want to talk about his right now?” 

Pete’s forced laugh is heartless. “Sure, why the fuck not?” 

Gabe hands him a fistful of paper towels. “It’s not about you,” Gabe insists. “Maybe it seems that way, but that’s your ego.” 

Pete replies shortly, “Yep.” A massive exhale, blotting at his face with the paper towels, and the tension from Pete’s face slips into the sink and down the drain. “I just— I didn’t tell you that I sent him a letter— with the book, you know? An’ I never heard anything about it, so—” Pete shrugs and Gabe stares at Pete’s red face in reverse through the mirror.

“Maybe he never found it,” Gabe offers, unhelpful for the first time that evening. 

Pete peers up at Gabe with a pathetic look and ignores Gabe’s proposition. He runs the paper towels under cold water and finishes, “I’m not drinking. Don’t tell Mikey.” 

“Pete,” Gabe says pointedly. “You are actively drunk.” 

“Yeah,” Pete says. He continues to wipe at his face with the damp paper towel disintegrating in his hands and sniffs, close to laughing. “Everyone knew about this but my mom.”

“Are we not telling Mikey about the drinking, or just—?” Gabe makes a collective gesture.

Pete shrugs. “It’s Mikey. He’s not really great about the—”

“The Patrick thing,” Gabe finishes for him, and Pete nods.

“Yeah. He’s never been anything but nice about it, really, but I don’t know if he knows we were talking at all when— uh, when we got together,” Pete admits. One eye covered, Pete stumbles into Gabe’s chest. “It’s just me, I think.” Gabe gives him a tired look, and Pete whines through an eye roll, “This is so fucking embarrassing. I’m so fucking embarrassing. Can we get out of here?”

Gabe looks uneasy. “Yes,” he agrees, and laughs softly. “Are we going home or getting food? If you want to eat, then we can go somewhere we won’t know anyone, like— we can go to the seaport or the North End. This one’s on you, man.”

Starving and well on his way to nauseous, Pete catches a final glimpse of himself in the mirror and narrowly avoids doing a double-take. “Oh God,” Pete bemoans after startling himself. “I need to go the fuck home.”

_August, Year IV_

The second Friday of August is grotesquely warm, and after their gathering at the usual haunt, Patrick stands on the street within his group of coworkers and shoves the sleeves of his t-shirt over his shoulders. William hands over his silver Zippo in silence, and Patrick lights the end of his cigarette with the other end between his teeth. It’s nearly too hot to smoke, do to anything other than lounge indoors in the air conditioning, but the outside temperature is dropping after sundown, and Patrick is feeling desperate. 

Nate and Joe are arguing over weekend plans in the heat, namely if being drunk is worse when it’s hot outside, and Nate quells the argument by asking Joe, “My roommate is going to have mushrooms next weekend. Are you in?” 

Joe accepts the offer immediately. “Who, Alex?” he replies. “I’m in.”

Patrick looks to William with a vague interest. He likes Nate. Nate finishes his work within an appropriate length of time, he makes Patrick laugh through otherwise frustrating days, and Nate and his girlfriend are, or at least appear to be from an outsider, a utopian match. The clique has accepted Nate as their unofficial leader, and Patrick is fine with this, because Nate always has plans for the weekend, and his roommate is an enabler for all activities inappropriate for his age. 

“Go if you want to,” William supplies. “I”m not going. Mushrooms and I don’t get along, but I can be around to come get you if you need me to.” 

Patrick hedges. “I kind of want to go. I’ve never tried them.” 

William laughs. He touches Patrick’s waist and Patrick returns the lighter, easy like a well-established routine, an art form. “Then go,” William encourages. “Give me a time and I’ll come get you, and if it’s bad, I’ll come get you before then and you can bad trip at my place. They’re terrible for me.” 

Patrick thinks to himself for another moment, twirls his cigarette between his fingers, then asks, “Was that an open invitation?” 

“Do you want to come?” 

“I’ll come,” Patrick declares. “Do I have to have done this before?” 

Nate gives a singular _whoop_ of encouragement. “Never done anything?” he asks. 

“Can’t remember,” Patrick lies. 

Nate assures him it will be fine or better, fun even, and if not, that no one will care. Nate says while Joe eyeballs him from the other side of the sidewalk, “Joe pukes in my apartment once a year and it hasn’t happened yet.” Patrick laughs and gives him an awkward smile. 

“Thanks,” Patrick whispers as they split off from the group and begin the walk down the narrow side street to the bus. He slips his hand into the back pocket of William’s jeans and stands on his toes to kiss him, soft in the same way he’d issued his thanks. 

“For what?” William asks. 

Patrick shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m a little excited.” 

“You have a crush on Nate,” William teases. 

“I really don’t,” Patrick replies, but the slight flush of his cheekbones gives him away, even in the dark. 

William wraps a forearm around Patrick’s waist and lets it linger there. There’s a small smile playing across William’s face and Patrick leans into his shoulder and sighs. They’re more comfortable with each other now, after the weekend in Foce Verde and the rest of the summer, and Patrick finds that he’s disclosed more in the past season than in a year. Patrick had promised himself he would be entirely honest with William since their first date, and mostly kept up with it, with the exception of admitting the extent of the feelings he once had for Pete. He’s allowed this one omission. 

♥

Nate’s apartment is a large but stuffy two-bedroom above a hair salon. Patrick had tripped up the stairs to get there, and Nate opened his door to an apartment that hosts only three windows, one in each bedroom and one above the couch, a view of the neighbors cracked brick exterior and wilting flowers in a window box. 

Nate hovers over his tiny kitchen island and yells at Joe to turn the television off. Joe pushes buttons on the remote with no luck, and Nate asks his girlfriend, “Can you go help him? It’s unreal.” He pours dried mushrooms from his hand into Patrick’s palm and explains, “Uh, you just, like, chew them up and swallow the whole thing with some soda or something. Here.” He slides a plastic cup across the island. 

Patrick tips the contents of his hand into his mouth and chews with a distasteful face. Nate stares at him in cheerful bewilderment and Patrick laughs, if only to cover up the retch threatening in the back of his throat. He takes a swig of Nate’s drink and finds that it tastes worse than the mushrooms, like Diet Coke (Nate’s vice) and alchohol, vodka or tequila, maybe. Patrick briefly considers that Nate’s cup could have anything in it, and then remembers that he’s just taken hallucinogenics for the first time, and whatever may or may not be in Nate’s plastic cup is irrelevant. 

Patrick settles into Nate’s couch, and is shortly accompanied by Nate, Nate’s girlfriend, Joe, and a friend that Patrick doesn’t recognize. He balances his ankles on the arm of Nate’s couch and leans back against the decorative pillows. Nate holds his girlfriend to his chest against the recliner and she kisses his cheek. Patrick rips his gaze from their embrace and stares at the ceiling instead, waiting. 

Nate’s ceiling is crumbling and stained in the corners. Patrick sees it all as insignificant imperfections, pocks and spots that only add to the complexities of the shadows of his companions on the ceiling. If he squints, the white plaster ceiling and all its blemishes dissolve into a scene of dancing figures. The room is silent, but Patrick can make up with ease the sounds and melodies that fit with the figures. It’s better than television, Patrick thinks, and much less frightening. 

He has no recollection of how long he spends lying there, his feet eventually falling asleep from being pressed against the arm of the couch, but he estimates that it must be hours, because the room grows dark and the streetlights come on. The streets outside the window above him feel still, but Nate’s apartment feels haunted. Patrick spends his trip focused on two figures in particular. They drift together, close enough to touch, but they never do. The shapes are a cold blue, alive like the ocean is alive, and when they’re ripped apart for the final time, Patrick smacks his head against the couch cushions and blinks it all away. 

Patrick opens his eyes as wide as he can and the ceiling becomes a fresh blanket of snow and the shadows become a pair of footsteps punched into the ice. 

Patrick says aloud, “There are nine cups in this room.” He hasn’t counted. The revelation comes from the depths of his stomach, and Patrick laughs, loud and stale in his own ears. 

From the floor, Nate echoes, “Nine cups.” He touches his face slowly and seems surprised when his fingers reach his face. “I’ll count.” 

The living room floor is littered with plastic cups, much like the one Patrick had drank out only a short time earlier, and Patrick tries to count along with Nate. There’s two coffee mugs on a side table and a wine glass collecting dust on the television stand, but Patrick’s eyes won’t focus on one just. He sees three at once, maybe four, but he knows there are nine in total. 

It feels like an hour later when Nate slurs, “There’s eight.” 

It scratches at the roof of Patrick’s mouth like a living, breathing being trying to escape. Patrick shoves himself off of his elbows and breathes, “No, there’s nine. There has to be.” Nate’s girlfriend grabs for Nate, looking spooked, and Patrick laughs and insists, “There’s nine. I know there’s nine cups.” 

Nate counts again. His girlfriend clings to him while he strains against her arms to reach for a paper cup under the coffee table, and he finally gasps, “There’s nine.” Nate’s cackle bounces off the walls and Patrick’s eardrums. His girlfriend freezes. 

“Who told you,” Nate’s girlfriend says blankly. 

Patrick’s mind procures a purple shape, vaguely human-shaped. “I don’t know,” Patrick says. 

They’re silent after that. The only sound in the room is Nate’s friend’s nervous sniveling, and Patrick turns his eyes to the ceiling again. His vision blurs like driving on the highway after dusk in the rain, lights streaked and reflecting off the damp pavement. He blinks, tries to focus on the grey space where the road turns to fog and the sky turns to God, and thinks, _You want summer too desperately._

Patrick bolts upright, coughing. In a rush of panic, Patrick wonders what time it is, immediately collides with the pure mushroom-induced realization that time isn’t real, and wants to go home, desperately. 

_I want to go home,_ Patrick thinks, and in retrospect, this is also when Patrick thinks everything starts to go south. 

Patrick awakens the next day with a vague unease— the kind that settles into his fingers and toes and can’t be shaken, the kind of discomfort that swallows him whole and leaves him to fester within. It hits him as soon as he opens his eyes to meet the daylight and finds that William is already awake.

He barely remembers the car ride home sometime after midnight, William guiding him up the stairwell of his apartment, and sloppily stripping his clothes before flopping into bed to sleep off the rest of his trip. He doesn’t dream, though nightmares are a concern when sleeping on mushrooms.

Patrick inhales deeply and shoves himself up on his elbows when he’s conscious enough to think. His throat feels tight and dry when he asks, “What time is it?” 

William considers him for a moment. “A little after noon,” he replies. “Why?” He reaches for Patrick, and Patrick stiffens, spine against the headboard of the bed, and frowns. “Are you okay?” William asks. His hand touches Patrick’s thigh under the bedsheets. 

Patrick stares at him side-eyed and pulls the sheets to his shoulders to cover his bare chest. “I don’t know,” he starts after a moment. “I think I’m fine. I just— I feel a little weird. Not bad.” 

William blinks, soft and considering. “What do you think?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t, like, believe in God now or anything. It’s like— you know when someone tells you a secret and you don’t feel the same about them anymore, or like you know something you aren’t supposed to know?” 

William smiles then and squeezes Patrick’s thigh. Patrick returns a terse smile. William doesn’t seem to notice that Patrick tenses slightly under his hands. William says, “This is why I don’t take mushrooms. It means you learned something last night.” 

Face blank, Patrick takes a minute to think, and then spits, half laughing, “What did I learn?” 

“I don’t know,” William replies. “Sometimes you don’t know right away. Are you glad you went?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick concedes. He leans across the bed to kiss William’s face before he reaches for his shirt on the floor. “I have to go home to check on Sonkie, but I’ll be back over for dinner.” 

Over dinner later, Patrick spins his fork in his hands and tells William cautiously, “One time Pete told me that God doesn’t play dice.” 

At the stovetop, William stills. He seems to sigh with his whole body, mind reeling, and he turns to face Patrick at the table and asks, “It this about the mushrooms?” 

“Maybe, I don’t know.” It takes only seconds and William’s quiet inquisitive tone for Patrick to feel overwhelmingly defensive. 

William sets a hot plate down on the table and sighs audibly. Patrick can see him thinking, intelligent beyond Patrick’s understanding. “That’s— that’s probably not what you learned,” he starts. Patrick stares at him. “It’s not very profound. They’re usually, uh— I don’t know, less tangible?"

“And what if it is what I learned?” Patrick argues. “Maybe I just got a reminder that, like, everything happens for a reason. You already said you don’t like mushrooms anyways, and why would you have a profound realization you can’t even explain?” 

William laughs, a little curious and a little annoyed, and Patrick sets his fork down on the table and demands an answer. 

“It’s not like that,” William explains patiently. “You just _know_ something. It’s intuition, not philosophy. Einstein’s understanding of inevitability isn’t a mushroom thought, that’s just something you internalized because that’s what someone told you. It’s not about fate when it’s in context, by the way.” 

“Pete told me that.” 

“Fine,” William replies. 

Patrick goes back to stabbing at his dinner. He asks, “How do you know that’s an Einstein quote?” 

“It’s not that— a college philosophy course? He really means that all matter follows the known laws of the universe, not that everything happens for a reason. Later he said that God endlessly plays dice under the laws he made, so it’s a contradiction anyways.”

“He says God plays dice _tirelessly_ ,” Patrick corrects. 

“You’re trivializing it.”

“I’m not _trivializing_ anything,” Patrick retorts, and William shakes his head.

“Clearly you know more about this than I do,” William tells him. “I’m just saying I think you’ll come to some other realization in a week.” 

Patrick laughs. “What, so there’s a limit? I only get one?” 

“ _Patrick,_ ” William says, exasperated, and the conversation is over as soon as it had started. 


	16. In which Mikey receives a wedding invitation.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it’s just teeth.”_ — Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

_September, Year IV_

William’s interview plan works. It works better than Patrick had initially given him credit for over the table in Foce Verde, and William finishes the interview for the job he is most excited about on Friday morning. Patrick agrees to meet him at a local café for lunch after the interview and spends his morning working on the expansion proposal, putting together the cost analysis William had finished for him during the month of August, and anticipating the end of the morning. 

Patrick flips through the folders and papers on his desk comprising the outline of the proposal and makes a tired face. The culmination of two months of work looks meager and uninteresting in eight-by-eleven-inch sheets of black and white. He thinks that he must be missing something, and that the handful of papers spread over the surface could not have cost him the entire summer. He stacks them up neatly, rummages through the top of his backpack for his wallet, and leaves the office in a rush to meet William for lunch. 

The fast exit makes him early to the café, and he’s glad for it. Patrick holds a table in the corner and orders something to drink, reveling in his moment alone before William arrives and greets him. He gets an enthusiastic embrace around the shoulders when William arrives, and grinning, Patrick looks up at him and asks, “What’s the story? How did the interview go?” 

William is more excited, more high-energy, than Patrick has ever seen him, and Patrick, matching William’s excitement but slightly taken aback, smiles appropriately and wraps William in a hug he hopes feels supportive and encouraging. 

Post-embrace, William falls into the chair opposite of Patrick, and leaning across the table, announces, “It was really good, and um— if I get this job, you should think about moving in with me.” William touches Patrick’s knuckles over the table. 

Patrick returns an apprehensive look. “You want me to move into your place? Are you keeping your apartment? You know if you get the job, it’s going to suck getting home.” 

William nods and otherwise appears unperturbed. He rubs at an eyebrow and shrugs. “The location’s not great for the commute, so we get another place and find something that works for both of us.” 

It’s probably true. Patrick’s current commute is too easy and nowhere near William’s prospective office. They would see each other considerably less, a thought which makes Patrick panic more than he’d anticipated, and still, William seems monumentally more excited about the prospect than Patrick feels. He can’t help but assume that William’s excitement for a step-up in his career is overshadowing the relationship, like maybe things are moving too fast for the wrong reasons— or perhaps it’s unwarranted anxieties. 

William’s hand is still resting on Patrick’s. Patrick makes a considering face. “I’ll think about it, but—” 

“I know you don’t make spontaneous decisions, but I like you, and I think it’d be fun, so—” 

Patrick grabs for his drink on the table and says with a finality that William is unlikely to argue with, “I’m not saying no, but can we talk about it when you’re sure you have the job?” 

“That’s fine,” William agrees, like he always does. “Just think about it.” 

Patrick gives him a small smile.

He gets the job offer the following Friday and William is elated. Patrick had known in an eerie way, pure intuition, that he would and is therefore fully prepared not to tell him no— as if he could turn down the proposition anyways with William’s grin pressed into the back of his neck. William holds him close to his chest, rocks Patrick back and forth in his arms, and says, “So you’ll move in with me?” 

Patrick hesitates and wills himself not to grin before he says, “Yeah.” William squeezes his ribs. “Yes, I’ll move in with you.” 

“I knew you’d say yes, and I have something to show you, but first—” William runs a hand through Patrick’s hair and bites at the curve of Patrick’s ear. “Can we celebrate? You look really fucking sexy right now.” 

Patrick hums like he doesn’t quite agree and kisses him. William curls his fingers around Patrick’s hip, sweet and full of anticipation, and Patrick melts into him. 

And later, when Patrick’s germinal excitement melts into foreboding, and without Pete to stand behind his every decision, Patrick waits for a composed moment alone and calls Hayley. He’s slightly surprised when she picks up the phone. She’s usually busy with friends in her free time, and when she greets him through the phone, it feels like plunging into the swimming pool in the humidity of July. He’s tired without warning. 

“So,” Patrick tells her lightly when they finish exchanging pleasantries. He scrapes the dregs of his dinner into the top of the garbage can and drops the plate into the sick. “I need some advice. William asked me to move in with him, and um— you’d never guess, but I’m freaking out.” 

A door slams. Hayley says, “Hold on, I’m shutting myself into the bathroom,” and then, “Okay, so William wants you to move in with him.” Another pause. Patrick rolls his eyes to the ceiling, and she continues, “Some freaking out is to be expected. It’s only normal.” 

Patrick sighs and jumps up to sit on the edge of his kitchen counter. “Who moves in with each other after eight months?” 

Hayley laughs. “A lot of people. Not you.” 

Patrick squeezes his eyes closed. “Am I allowed to say no?” 

Hayley laughs again. “Yes, you’re allowed to say no, but I think you should give it a few days.” 

“I already said yes,” Patrick discloses reluctantly, “Or I kind of said yes.” 

Hayley thinks for a moment, obviously searching for the positive. “You would save money,” she points out, and Patrick frowns, considering. “I know he has money, ‘cause you’re dating him. You’d never be lonely, and he clearly likes you. You can have as much sex as you want.” There’s silence from the other end of the phone until Hayley makes a high-pitched considering noise. “That’s probably the biggest up-side, until you want ten minutes alone and it’s impossible.” 

“And that’s why you’re isolating yourself in the bathroom.” Patrick inhales deeply before he tries, “Okay, since you brought it up— and, it has to stay between us, but I’ve got to ask you this, as a real adult. You know when you have, like, _really good_ sex and it’s emotionally exhausting?” 

Hayley balances the phone between her ear and her shoulder. She pulls an exaggerated face in concentration. “Like mind-melding? Yes.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes. “Okay, what’s the recipe?”

“Are you asking because you never, or—?” 

“Situational,” Patrick quickly clarifies.

Hayley thinks for another moment and then says, “I don’t know. It’s probably a lot of things. Maybe you have three glasses of wine and the sex seems better, or you wait a few days and see if you just need to hit the reset button. Sometimes you’re just in love.” 

Patrick produces a frustrated noise. “None of those solve my problem.” 

Hayley presses the speaker button on her phone, leans forward to ogle at herself in the mirror, and requests like it should be on the front of Cosmo, “Tell me everything.” 

“I’m not complaining,” Patrick clarifies quickly. He sighs and laughs lightly. “It could not be a better situation and he’s so, _so_ nice, and it’s so fun, and it’s so, _so_ annoying.”

Hayley’s small smile reveals that she knows something Patrick doesn’t. Her condescension is deafening. “Have you talked about it?” 

“What?” Patrick snaps. “No, that’s weird. Like, it’s fun—”

Hayley interrupts. “Go to couple’s therapy.” 

Patrick makes a noise of disbelief. “Couple’s therapy is for people who have been married fifteen years and now they’re bored. I just want to get it all out in an hour, I’m sick of being emotional on a Thursday.”

“Then I don’t know what to tell you,” Hayley retorts. She grins and chides, “Patrick, I just want to make sure your emotional needs are being met.” 

Patrick smiles against the back of his hand and asks, close to whining, “Am I high maintenance?” 

“According to whom?” Hayley teases, “High maintenance to me? Yes, very.” 

“Tell me I’m freaking out about nothing.” 

“I’m not doing that, but maybe you should give him a little direction,” Hayley prods, and Patrick makes a noise of disgust. Hayley laughs and offers, “It helps. I swear to God it helps.” 

Patrick makes one more reluctant sound before he tells Hayley that he’s exhausted and that he’s going to bed early for once in his short life. “I’m going to shower,” he says, “And then I’m going to get in bed and pretend I’m freaking out about anything my sex life— which, just so you know, is not something I’ve really needed to freak out about before.” 

“The move,” Hayley reminds him. “You can freak out about the move while you’re at it.” 

“Let’s not.” 

Hayley rips open a drawer beneath her bathroom counter and produces a tube of mascara. “I really think that you need to take some melatonin or something,” she tells Patrick. 

Patrick scoffs and tells her in return, “It gives me weird dreams.” 

_October, Year IV_

Fall arrives in Boston and Pete spends more time in other people’s apartments than his own. He spends his weekend afternoons with Mikey, sidled up to each other on the couch, in bed, or outside on the balcony when it’s warm enough. Mikey asks if he wants to go out every weekend, and since the awkward exchange with Hayley, Pete replies every time with, “I’m not drinking.” So they order take-out, or eat nothing at all, and make good use of the rest of the evening. Mikey never sleeps over. 

He finds himself at Gabe’s after work during the week and they take turns making dinner. Gabe keeps a constant supply of beer in his fridge and an endless number of distractions up his sleeve, and Pete is content with this. 

Gabe absently hands Pete his wedding invitation over the counter one weeknight with zero ulterior motivations and says, “Didn’t think it was worth mailing.” 

Pete snatches it from the countertop and after shoving the sleeves of his sweatshirt up his forearms and taking a meditative breath, peels the sticker off the back of the envelope and pulls out the invitation. The air surrounding Pete’s barstool goes stale for a moment, and he flicks the envelope into a pool of condensation on the counter to dampen and disintegrate. Pete sighs, hovering over Gabe’s kitchen island with a beer tucked into his elbow and Gabe’s wedding invite poised between his thumbs and middle fingers. 

Pete turns the card over in his hands, pulls a face, and looks up at Gabe as the stove. Pete says, “You gave me a plus one.”

“Yeah,” Gabe replies. 

“Why?” 

“What do you mean?” Gabe asks in return. It is clear that Gabe isn’t in on the joke. 

Pete continues to study the card until Gabe hands him a plate and gestures to the counter. Pete looks between the plate and Gabe with a look of disgust and says plainly, subtly bitter, “Who am I going to bring as a plus-one?” 

Gabe shoves the plate into his hands. “Dude, I don’t know, whoever you want. You don’t have to bring anyone.” 

Pete makes an incredulous noise and breathes through a laugh, “I’m not bringing Mikey, if that’s what you’re implying.” 

Pete can hear Gabe’s forced shrug when he says, “I just said you don’t have to bring anyone. I’m not implying anything.” 

“Why do you want me to bring Mikey?” 

Pete’s fork scrapes across his plate in just the right way, and they both wince. Gabe shakes the sound out of his head. Pete closes his eyes and abandons the fork in exchange for something less violent. It’s much less effective but serves as a silent offering in maintaining the peace. 

Gabe makes a frustrated sigh and tells him, “I don’t give a shit if you bring Mikey or you don’t bring Mikey. I’m just giving you the option, like, to be nice.” 

The availability of options, Pete thinks, is a poorly disguised method of forcing Pete to choose whether or not his relationship with Mikey is genuine, worth taking the next step into officially exclusive, or just a long-term string of business-like hookups deriving from a deep sense of loneliness Pete hasn’t managed to shake. In the moment, it seems to be a realistic consideration, and in hindsight, is far too much mental gymnastics for Gabe to ever participate in. 

“Right,” Pete starts, “Because you think it’ll make me pick a side and you think I do a poor job of managing my relationships and you think I let people take advantage of me.”

Gabe retorts blindly, “You said it, not me,” and Pete rolls his eyes. Gabe insists, “I’m _saying_ that it might be worth your time just to think about why you don’t want to bring Mikey anywhere where he might have to interact with your friends, and for what it’s worth, I don’t think Mikey’s taking advantage of you, but evidence would suggest that—”

“I get it,” Pete offers dismissively before Gabe re-interrupts him. 

“I don’t think it has anything to do with Mikey,” Gabe explains. “I told you to go hang out with Mikey. I mean that it’s not Mikey’s fault—” 

Pete pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and attempts to puncture the vegetables in the center of his plate with the end of his spoon. “Talk about something else, Gabe. Talk about literally anything else. I’m not fucking kidding.” 

Gabe takes the hint. He changes the subject immediately. “You need to watch this docu-series on Harry Reid.”

The following night, after a cumulative two hours of watching a space-themed sitcom on a streaming platform Pete doesn’t remember paying for and lazily getting himself off against Mikey’s thigh, Pete contemplates telling Mikey about the plus-one with no real intention of asking. The list goes as such: it’s not Mikey’s scene, Pete has best man duties, Pete may or may not make an exception in the drinking for the evening— this seems to happen more often than Pete would like; he’s redefining himself as a social drinker. 

There’s still alcohol in the top of his kitchen cabinets, and he will drink out of Mikey’s glass when they do go out, but other than the sanctuary of Gabe’s kitchen, he’s avoiding been avoiding it like he avoids the inappropriate questioning from his aunt at family holidays. It does make a difference, he figures. He feels less on edge most days, clearer in the head, and less guilty about the weed habit— which has decreased in frequency in parallel. Mikey says it makes him feel paranoid, so Pete indulges on weekends and Friday nights alone, rarely. 

Lying over Mikey’s chest on his leather couch, completely and purely free of clothes, Pete makes himself boneless over Mikey’s body and feels himself swallow against Mikey’s shoulder. Mikey wraps a hand around the back of Pete’s thigh, and Pete glances over Mikey’s permanent resting bitch face and disinterested eyes, and laughs, because only Mikey would look so begrudging minutes after being sucked off in front of the television with a promise of dinner later. 

Mikey adjusts his hair with his free hand, the one not tucked under Pete’s body and resting on the back of Pete’s leg. He asks, “What?”

He’s close to sleep, and it takes effort to lift his face from the couch and tell Mikey, almost offhandedly, “Gabe gave me a plus-one to his wedding.” Too tired, he feels exposed. Mikey is still wearing his t-shirt. Pete pulls at the collar and drops his face to Mikey’s shoulder again, bites at the lines of Mikey’s neck, and murmurs, “Do you want to go?” 

Mikey twitches underneath him and goes back to staring at his cuticles in the next second. “You’re asking me if I want to be your plus-one to Gabe’s wedding.” 

Pete twists his fingers in the hem of Mikey’s shirt and hums. His mouth finds Mikey’s left collarbone. “Yeah, you want to go?” 

“Honestly,” Mikey replies, and heaves a sigh. His eyes and fingertips trace the shallow contours of Pete’s back and he finishes, “Not really. Who’s going to be there that I know?” 

They lack mutual friends intensely, a fact for which Pete is both greatly sorry and immensely grateful. Outside of Erin and Gabe, there is no one he can think of that Mikey would know. He’d been planning to keep it that way for the foreseeable future, at least until he and Mikey can agree that they’re mutually exclusive. Pete pretends to think for a moment and then admits, “I don’t know— won’t know until I get a guest list, and then I’d have to tell you.” 

Mikey blows air out of his nose in an imitation of a laugh and chews on the inside of his cheek. He taps the back of Pete’s skull and waits for Pete to lift his head before he kisses him filthy. “I don’t know why I’m being insipid,” Mikey mumbles. “I don’t fucking want to go.” 

“Then don’t go,” Pete tells him between the slick pops of Mikey’s mouth against his, “And insipid? Jesus fucking Christ.” 

Mikey’s laugh is genuine this time. “You want me to be your plus-one to a wedding and we don’t even go out on dates.” 

Pete feels himself still against his will and pull back from Mikey’s mouth. His hands shift against the couch cushions and Pete looks over Mikey’s swollen upper lip and wrinkled t-shirt and lets his mouth fall open. Mikey touches his chest with hopeful fingertips and Mikey’s lip quirks into a beguiling smirk. 

Pete feels his stomach tighten. “You want to go on a date,” he says. “Like you want to go out and have dinner.” 

“Sure,” Mikey says, noncommittal. “I mean, I have no complaints about fucking on your couch every night but if you ever wanted to go out and maybe try drinking something, I’m not the one telling you no.” 

Pete pulls his lip into his mouth. He supposes he lacks an enthusiasm for seeing Hayley again, or any of her cronies, spending most of his time trying desperately to garner any semblance of distance from anything Patrick-related. He swipes his tongue over his stinging lip and informs Mikey, “You could have just told me. You didn’t have to, like, wait for me to bring it up.” 

“Are you offended?” 

“No,” Pete says blankly.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Mikey quips, and pulls Pete back to him with one arm looped around his neck. Mikey’s teasing smile carries the undertones of an unfortunate truth, and Pete hesitates before he presses his chest to Mikey’s through Mikey’s t-shirt. Mikey laughs, “I’m just fucking with you,” and Pete hums, unsure. 

“You’re faking me out.” 

“Whatever,” Mikey mutters dismissively. He does an awful job at concealing his smile, and Pete pokes him in the stomach. 

“I’m serious,” Pete says, and laughs. “Can you just tell me when you want something?” 

Mikey rolls his eyes and agrees, “Yeah, sure.” At the grin he gets in return, Mikey gives another exaggerated eye roll and asks, “Can we get dinner now? Can you get dressed?” 

Pete peels himself off of Mikey and stretches his arms over his head. “Can’t believe you don’t want to be my plus-one to Gabe’s stupid wedding. Fuck you.” 

Mikey laughs, and Mikey leaves after dinner. 

When he’s finished with cleaning up the kitchen, Pete pins the wedding invitation to his refrigerator with a weak magnet and watches it slide down the front of the refrigerator to lie on the tiled kitchen floor. He pulls a twisted smile then, and goes to brush his teeth. 

_November, Year IV_

Patrick holds the phone against his ear and grins. The clock above the stove reads 3 AM. William is asleep like he’s dead in the other room, and Patrick had rolled out of bed to call Hayley on a whim, figuring she must be home from work by now. He doesn’t turn on the kitchen lights, proud of himself for finding some time alone, and he makes tea in the pitch dark, as quietly as he can manage. William’s cat stares at him in silence from under the table. 

Hayley gripes about the co-ops and the weather, and eventually asks, “Did you get a plus-one with your wedding invite?” 

“Nope,” Patrick answers. He pops the second consonant. Patrick sips at his tea and after burning himself, soaks in the pregnant pause, awaiting Hayley’s reply. It doesn’t come immediately. “I have to go to the wedding, don’t I?” 

“You don’t have to go to the wedding,” Hayley replies. “You are free to turn down the invitation on account of the fact that you live an actual ocean away.” Her smile is audible. “Sucks you didn’t get a plus-one.” 

Hayley grins. “I couldn’t guarantee that wouldn’t end in a physical assault.” Patrick laughs out loud then, presses his face to his elbow to muffle the noise, and takes another scorching sip from his mug. Hayley continues, “But seriously, you don’t have to go if it’s not feasible, or if you just don’t want to take the time off work to go.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick counters, “But I should just go to the fucking wedding.” 

“Okay,” Hayley tells him, as she always does, “You clearly secretly want to go to the wedding.” She finishes, “And don’t let this influence your decision, but I’m sure your friends would love to see you if you come.” 

Patrick considers both options for a moment. He could not go, tell William in passing that his friend was getting married this weekend but that it was too expensive and too inconvenient. William would tell him he should have gone, and Patrick would shrug and immediately change the subject— or he could go, dodge questions about where it is and who would be there, even if William doesn’t care, and feel guilty the entire time he was in Newport. 

“I just want to go to the beach,” Patrick tries, and then inhales, still thinking. “I’m never getting married.” 

“You’ve said,” Hayley notes. “You know you need to get someone to agree to marry you first. You have too many weird rules for yourself.” 

“Any man that doesn’t drive a car that’s slightly nicer than usual or practical is not worth your time,” Patrick says. “I don’t know many things but I do know this.” 

Hayley sighs. She asks, suddenly sounding tired, “And what if they don’t have a car?” 

“If they don’t have a car, then it’s what kind of watch they wear. If it’s a Nardin, then you’re probably safe, but if it’s, like, a Piguet, then you should just leave. You should leave the date.” 

Patrick can see Hayley’s twisted smirk if he closes his eyes. She asks, “What if they don’t have either?” 

“I do have a watch,” Patrick argues. “I got it at the Harvard bookstore, and it works perfectly fine.” 

She mocks him in perfect cadence. “That is, like, sacrilegious. That is blasphemous in so many ways.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes and lets his chin rest on the back of his hand. He watches the minute digit of the glowing LED clock change and realizes he doesn’t really want to go back to bed. He realizes why he’d gotten out of bed in the first place, feeling restless and sweating even for the approaching colder weather. The intention had been to go back to sleep after turning off the radiator, but getting up had led to tea and the resulting phone call with Hayley. He dunks the tip of his index finger into his cup and pushes the tea bag around, and discloses, “I’m working on a proposal at work.” 

Hayley hums. “What kind?” 

“She wants a separate magazine for the US, for baby bands and stuff. I’ve been putting together some samples and—” Patrick takes a deep inhale and follows it with a sigh. “I think it’s coming out okay, but I don’t know what Victoria will think.” 

This seems to pique Hayley’s interest. Her tone is the equivalent of a dog lifting it’s ears to hear with greater clarity. “That sounds cool, yeah?” she asks. “What’s the initial investment going to cost you?” 

Patrick hesitates before he answers. _A lot_ is the right answer. He’d studied William’s numbers after a budgeting breakthrough idea had come to him while trying to fall asleep one night, and sitting at his kitchen island with Sonkie inspecting his every move, Patrick hadn’t managed to slash expenses, but decrease them significantly. He still ended up with the costs of adding more people to the team, resources, and without fail, the biggest profit assassin, advertising. He rolls the totals around in his head as best as he can remember them, then tells Hayley, “It’s not as high as I anticipated.” 

Hayley demands in good faith, “Are you missing something? Who did them for you?” 

“William,” Patrick admits, “And then I double-checked them myself.” 

Hayley wilts slightly and sighs. “You need to have somebody with zero investment check them again, you know. An independent third party, so add a consultant to your budget.” 

“I have one,” Patrick insists, “And I got a recommendation, but I know where to find you if I need someone else.” 

“When do you submit the proposal?” 

Patrick sighs, mimicking Hayley and beginning to feel tired. “I don’t know. Soon.” 

She reads him well. “You should go to bed,” she says, and after finishing his tea, Patrick agrees. 

♥

William chooses to further celebrate the transition, the career upheaval, and the apartment search with a few friends. Like William, all of William’s friends are tall, dark-haired, and beautiful, and Patrick can’t help but feel out of place, even if William insists he looks great in the bedroom ten minutes before they leave. 

It’s much less of a dinner party than it is an excuse to get drunk. William’s friends congratulate him on the career change over a bottle of wine and mixed drinks. Patrick drinks to avoid the inevitable awkwardness, and William is tipsy with Patrick’s legs across his lap. 

William’s hand slides up the back of his shirt, and Patrick leans into William’s ear to whisper, “I like you so much.” 

“Yeah?” William kisses him, drink in hand and tasting of sweet alcohol, and says, “I think I might love you,” and it might be adrenaline or one drink too many, but Patrickimmediately feels like he’s going to vomit. He swallows the fluid in the back of his throat and throws William a stupid grin, raises his glass and touches it to William’s. 

“To your new job,” Patrick grits out, goofy smile still plastered on his face. He’s desperately hoping no one notices how his hands have gone cold. There’s a whoop of agreement at the table from William’s friends, barely audible to Patrick over the pounding waves in his head, crashing against his eardrums. The skin of his face feels hot and sticky, too small for the features that feel too big. Patrick manages to stay at the table long enough to have a word with each of William’s friends, touch glasses, and put on the good boyfriend show, and then he excuses himself to the bathroom. 

In the bathroom, Patrick falls back against the cold plastic divider and wills himself not to upset the contents of his stomach. He folds his arms over his chest, blinking back unwarranted tears, and stares into the toilet until he feels more alcohol than anxiety. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, and leaves the stall to wash out his mouth in the sink, refusing to look at himself in the mirror. 

The events of the rest of the evening pass in rapid succession. Patrick wanders back to the table and throws his thighs over William’s, lets William kiss him, and flirts casually with William’s friends. When the waitress returns to the table, Patrick orders two Americanos and knocks them back easily, and asks for a third before William kindly tells the waitress he’s had enough. 

Patrick makes hands at William’s drink, and William pulls it away from him and asks, “Would you like to go home?”

“No,” Patrick answers, but he’s fidgety the rest of the night, itchy under his shirt and sitting with his arm around William’s waist in the cramped booth. He fields questions about Boston over a soda William forces upon him and drunkenly spills stories about college bar crawls and regrettably, Pete, the last person who had told Patrick he was loved and meant it. 

“Okay,” William says, and laughs. “I think it’s time that we go home.”

“No,” Patrick protests. “I’m fine.” 

One of William’s friends sips on his straw and teases, “Wow, all of that and you still ended up here,” and Patrick sobers up immediately. 

Patrick sits back against the booth and accidentally elbows William in the stomach. William grimaces, and Patrick shrugs and explains, “Yeah, I had my reasons.” 

“Okay,” William says again. The smile is dampened. “We are going home. I’m going to ask for the cheque, are you ready to go?” 

Feeling cattish, Patrick sulks in the car home, and therefore decides he dislikes all of William’s friends. He’s feeling steadier by the time they reach William’s apartment, and just inside the door, William shrugs off his coat and helps Patrick out of his. He asks, “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Patrick protests. He tries to keep his voice level and hopes William doesn’t notice. William looks distrustful; they’ve known each other just long enough to realize when the other is lying. 

“We don’t have to go out with my friends anymore, if you don’t like them— or you don’t have to go out with them.” 

“I like your friends,” Patrick lies. His voice is too high, too tense. “I just need a coffee or something. I’m just tired. ” 

William offers to make him something to eat, and Patrick declines. He’s focused on being dispassionate, he just needs to sober up and go to bed. 

“What’s the matter?” William asks, more seriously this time. He’s caught onto the tension Patrick is holding. William’s hand is wrapped gently around Patrick’s forearm. Patrick resists the urge to snatch it away. “What did I say?” 

“Nothing. I had fun,” Patrick says quietly, insisting. William stares at him with an inquisitive expression and Patrick stares at his own hands, plays with the loose button on his shirt. 

“Did you really want to make a sport out of embarrassing yourself?” 

Patrick laughs. “Are you fucking serious?” 

“Okay,” William replies tersely, and points to himself. “If I did anything, we should talk about it.” There’s a tense moment of silence in which Patrick pointedly ignores William’s invitation to talk, and William draws in a quick breath and runs his fingertips down Patrick’s forearm. He presses a hesitant kiss to Patrick’s cowlick and says, “I’m going to shower, and then I’m going to bed, so let me know if you want to talk.” 

“Good night,” Patrick says, and with a surge of caffeine and a litany of thoughts to silence, Patrick finishes days worth of work in hours, pupils glued to his laptop screen until his eyelids hurt. William slams the bathroom door when he’s done in the shower and Patrick doesn’t bother to look up— instead, he slouches further over his keyboard and ignores William’s exaggerated sigh. It’s not as cathartic as he’d hoped, and when he’s finished with being spiteful and fully exhausted, he closes his laptop silently and takes a blistering shower. 

He crawls into bed in the early hours of the morning, and dressed once again in a t-shirt and underwear, Patrick kneels on the bed next to William and silently praises God William is a light sleeper. 

William shuffles beneath a crumpled layer of sheets and blinks at him in the dark. Firm hands find Patrick’s hips, and Patrick wrestles his t-shirt over his head and tosses it over William’s side of the bed. Patrick whispers venomously, “I fucking hate your friends.” 

“I know, that was clear,” William replies, too sleepy to put any effort into sounding harsh, and then asks, “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Yes,” Patrick sighs. He fists one hands over the edge of William’s comforter and reaches for William’s hand with the other. “I know it’s late,” he says, “But can we—?” 

William makes a firm, agreeable noise, and Patrick surges against him, abandons the fistful of fabric he has to slide his hands beneath Willian’s biceps and waits to be kissed breathless. It doesn’t come.

“Okay,” Patrick starts, and laughs. “Okay, I need us to try something.” He drags his fingernails lightly over William’s ribs and feels William inhale against his palms, delights in the small positive reaction he’s awarded and his erection stiffening against his thigh. “Okay, um— I want you to fuck me, but like, harder— and you can be a little more— uh, handsy.” 

It feels awkward and sticky in his mouth and close to embarrassing, but William’s mouth is stuck to his neck and he gives a small moan before he bites the soft skin of Patrick’s neck. 

“ _Shit,_ ” Patrick breathes. 

“Okay?” William asks, and Patrick nods furiously. William pushes him backward, gently, and Patrick flops back against the pillows and makes a noise he trusts is encouraging. 

“Yeah, that’s what I’m—” William bites him again. Patrick exhales sharply and feels his cock twitch against his stomach. He hopes it leaves a mark. “Yeah, more of that and—” Patrick laughs and swallows the urge to take it all back. “Just like more— more of everything, you know?” 

His mouth still on Patrick’s neck, William mumbles, “I thought you liked the soft and slow.” 

Patrick wraps his hands around William’s face and drags him from his neck up to his mouth. Patrick kisses him, tender and a lot of tongue, and says, “I know, and I do, and I want to try something else. That’s why I’m telling you.” William makes a disheartened noise and Patrick sighs and tells him, “I don’t want to make it a thing, I’m just _asking_.” Patrick’s hands find either side of his hips, reassuring, and William’s face changes from perturbed to considering. “We can talk about it. It doesn’t have to be right now.” 

“No,” William says quickly. “We can talk now, just— um, just tell me what you want.” William bumps his hips against Patrick’s, and Patrick freezes beneath him, tongue stuck to his lower lip. 

Patrick thinks for a moment. He hadn’t expected to get this far, in all honesty (a thought he saves for another night entirely), and William stares at him expectedly, awaiting some instruction that is caught beneath Patrick’s tongue. Patrick makes an awkward noise, stumbles over words for another moment, and comes out with, “Let me ride you.” 

William turns red beneath the long hair in his face, tousled from sleep and his hands. “Sure,” William agrees without hesitation. “How do you want to—?” 

Through his restrained enthusiasm, Patrick says carefully, “Switch with me— in a minute. We can take this part slow, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” William breathes. “Ti darò tutti quello que vuoi.” _I’ll give you whatever you want._

Patrick flips the switch on the bedside lamp and reaches for the drawer, and William makes a startled noise and squints against the bright light. 

“Jesus, sorry. I’m sorry,” Patrick tells him quickly. “Fuck, it’s so bright. I just want the lube.” 

Patrick rides him, like he means it, within the next minutes, with one hand splayed across William’s chest and the other furiously working over his cock, and William scrapes his fingernails along the backs of Patrick’s thighs, over and over until Patrick’s skin is littered with angry red lines. They shift slightly; William tugs Patrick towards him with his hands around the backs of Patrick’s knees, and Patrick drops his chin to his collar and unleashes a enumeration of expletives and encouragements. 

It’s only when William’s hands slide up the backs of his thighs, though, over the stinging demarcations there and wrap around Patrick’s hips that Patrick shivers, shakes a dampening curtain of hair out of his eyes, and murmurs, “Fuck.” William’s thumbs sink into the flesh on either side of Patrick’s navel, and Patrick stills above him, runs his palms over William’s prominent ribs, and breathes, fingers twitching, “Fuck me through the rest of it.” 

“Yeah,” William says from below him, and Patrick wastes no time in climbing off of William’s body and settling back against the sheets. 

William pushes into him a second time, looks over Patrick’s eyes squeezed closed and teeth in his lower lip, and laughs. “Okay?” 

Patrick pulls William’s face to his neck, his mouth to William’s ear. He rolls his hips and momentarily contented, sighs and mutters, “Yeah, but fuck— more.” 

“I’m trying to make this work,” William says as Patrick fists a hand in his hair. 

Patrick’s laugh comes out as a stifled groan. “It’s working, but—” Through with being embarrassed and shaking with the feeling of being pulled taut, ready to snap, Patrick tangles his fingers further into William’s hair and insists, “No, I’m serious. I fucking want this, come on.” 

William seems to get it then, or catch the hint Patrick has been throwing at him for weeks into months, and Patrick drops his skull into the pillows, boneless. Patrick feels him sometimes, if William twists his hand or his fingers just the right way, and Patrick rolls his eyes into the back of his head and goes limp, becomes one with the mattress, and chokes on a name he hasn’t spoken in months in the back of his throat, but this isn’t one of those times. It’s something else entirely and Patrick feels his breath hitch and realizes, blissed, that it’s more than fun, it’s veneration, and it is exactly what he’s wanted. 

“Yeah, like that,” Patrick manages, prior to coming harder than he has in months. The room goes dark for a moment as William kisses the soft skin below his jawline and the skin stretched over his cheekbones. Patrick pulls William’s chest closer to his own and tries to slow his heart rate, refocus his eyes, and unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. 

William sits back on his heels and stares at him, a little dumbstruck, in the next moment, and Patrick stares up at him with glistening eyes and says, “I told you.” The charmed look he gets in return is reward enough, and as he tackles William backward and wraps a hand around William’s erection with enthusiasm, Patrick kisses the hollow of William’s shoulder and murmurs, “I told you.” 

William thumbs over the bony protrusions at the top of Patrick’s spine and with a smirk bordering on silly, William hums and agrees, “I know.”

♥

Patrick touches the bruise on the side of his neck in the mirror the next morning. He presses his fingers into the circular red mark and feels that the skin there is warmer than the rest of his neck. His skin is prickly, he needs to shave, and William opens the door and asks, “You okay?” 

Patrick peers at him from over his hand pressed to his neck and laughs. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

“You should have told me sooner.” Patrick shrugs, and William wraps long arms around his chest and kisses the bruise. Patrick lets his eyes roll back and revels in the feeling of not knowing whether to move into or away from William’s tongue. William croons, “Life’s too short for bad sex.” 

Patrick internalizes an eye roll. “Don’t say bad. It was never bad.” 

William kisses Patrick’s neck again before he guides Patrick’s chin to meet his mouth, soft. “Why not?” 

“Because,” Patrick replies simply. “I told you so.” 

Later that night, Patrick comes home from a show with Nate, drops his clothes to the floor, and crawls beneath the covers. William kisses the corner of his mouth, asking, and Patrick digs his fingernails into the lines of muscle on either side of William’s spine and mutters, “Come on, same as last night.” 

_December, Year IV_

It takes Victoria a long time to agree to anything, even after Patrick drops off the finished proposal, a working prototype with room for content and design changes, and a full preliminary expense report, which Patrick has confirmed with a multitude of outsiders who owe him a favor. Patrick slips it in the box outside her office door and doesn’t hear anything for two weeks, in which he debates with William over dinner nearly every night whether or not he should remind her to look at it. 

“I don’t want to be rude,” Patrick says. 

William rolls his eyes. “You work for her. She also works for you.” 

The meeting comes as a surprise then. Victoria sends him the meeting invite over email, her primary form of communication, (“Why can’t she just call me or drop in my office like any normal person?” Patrick asks. William tells him it’s a ploy to make her appear inaccessible.) and Patrick finds himself in Victoria’s office a few short days later, more nervous than the first time. 

Victoria carefully returns the package of papers and Patrick momentarily prepares to hear that she hates it. “I’m happy with this,” she says instead, and coming from Victoria, it feels like winning Olympic gold. “If I’m being picky, there’s a few little things I want to change and I think you need to be more creative with advertising.” Patrick goes to tell her he’s open to modifications, short of handing the entire project back to Victoria, but she speaks again before he can interrupt. “And I want a second opinion,” she finishes, and then asks, “How do you feel about traveling?” 

It feels like a catch. The second opinion, Patrick thinks, is fair. Victoria gives him a long look across the desk, studies Patrick’s nervous idiosyncrasies, and Patrick unthinkingly scrubs at his hair. “Um— I’m open to it, I guess. Traveling to where?” 

“I forwarded everything you gave me to a friend in New York. He said he wanted to see more and I said I don’t have more, but I’ll give you his number and you can connect.” She scribbles some combination of numbers across an empty Post-it in and endless sea of neon pink and highlighter yellow and sticks it within Patrick’s reach.She says, “I didn’t get a lot of feedback yet, just that he seems interested. I would plan on being really flexible and see what happens.”

“Okay,” Patrick agrees. 

“Can you be flexible with the timing, too?” 

Patrick immediately considers being sent to New York as a punishment for his crimes. The proposition asks more questions than it answers, and Patrick takes a deep breath and agrees again, “Sure.” 

“Great,” she says, though she doesn’t sound it, and then, “This looks great. Really, it does. I’ll work on setting something up. Do you have another minute? Can we talk about the changes?” She clicks around on her computer screen, and all Patrick can do is silently nod. 

Victoria breezes through the changes she wants made, obviously desperate to get Patrick out of her office and get on with the rest of the day. She goes back to typing as soon as he stands to leave, and as he’s leaving her office, pretending like he hadn’t been waiting for ask for the entirety of the meeting, Patrick asks, “Oh. How long have you been sitting on this project?” 

Victoria looks up from her keyboard and holds out her hands, noncommittal in her answer. She heaves an unenthusiastic sigh and guesses, “A few years?” 

Patrick makes a soft noise with his tongue. “Is that why—?” 

“Yes.” 

“Okay.” Patrick gives her a passing wave goodbye in the doorway. Victoria politely returns a tight smile, and Patrick says, “Thanks.” 

Victoria sends him the flight details within the next week and Patrick is on the phone with Hayley in minutes, his inbox open in one window and his calendar in the other. He flicks the end of his pen against his desk repeatedly, held like a cigarette, his elbows stacked on the surface of the desk. 

Hayley takes the bait and asks with mellowed earnest, “Are you going to have the weekend free?"

“I’m leaving midday Sunday. We have to get together,” Patrick tells her excitedly. “I can rent a car— or, my license might be expired, but I can take the Amtrak or something. I want to see you.” 

Hayley laughs, a pretty, twinkling sound, and Patrick grins. In his mind, Hayley lifts an eyebrow, and she says, “I have nothing so far and I’d love to see you. Let’s double-check closer to the weekend but I’m sure we can make it work.” 

“Sure, we’ll make it work,” Patrick replies. He makes a poor attempt to hide his enthusiasm. “Even if we can just do dinner or something— it’ll be worth it. Tell me where to be and I’ll be there.” 


	17. In which William reads The Book.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“My tongue sticks in my throat, and slowly I swallow it. My soul has moved, I can’t find it anymore. I don’t care.”_ — Margarita Karapanou

_January, Year V_

With his new job, William moves into an apartment on the other side of the city. Several items commence in January, and Patrick tells William he’ll move in later with the justification that he wants to give William time to adjust— to the career change, to the opposite side of the city, and to their new dynamic. Patrick loves the apartment, though; it’s massive compared to Patrick’s glorified walk-in closet and starts to feel like a second home after New Year’s. 

They throw dishes from William’s old apartment and William’s ancient laptop off the balcony of the new apartment, watching their descent and subsequent shattering in the alley below. Patrick says he has nothing to throw. They get tipsy on white wine and seltzer and kiss at midnight, and when William brushes his hands through Patrick’s hair, Patrick happily follows him into the bedroom. They suck each other off, both too drunk to really enjoy it, and fall asleep together, still messy. 

He wakes up tangled around William’s long limbs and loose hair. The bed looks slept in and the room is flooded with a cold, refreshing light. Patrick combs his hair in William’s vanity mirror and knows that the slipping feeling in the pit of his stomach is a combination of the headache and getting older, wiser. He’s in love— or as much as he’s ever been. 

_His Parliament's on fire and his hands are up_

_On the balcony and I'm singing_

_Ooh baby, ooh baby, I'm in love_ — West Coast

And so January begins as it always does. It’s cold and it stays that way. Patrick’s affinity for the apartment is a blessing since he spends so much time there, holed up in William’s living room or slouched over William’s countertops and wrapped up in both fading sweatshirts and Victoria’s latest request. The project takes most of his energy, enough that he feels like he’s missing out on some of his own life. 

“You can move in whenever you’ve got the time,” William offers offhandedly, at every moment it’s appropriate. 

“Maybe,” Patrick says. 

The month passes regardless of whether Patrick pays attention. He’s used to being caught by surprise by now, and therefore, it comes as no shock when William stands in the doorway to the living room, shoulders propped against the doorframe and hands hidden behind his back, and tells him, very carefully, “So, I read Pete’s book.” 

Enamored with his laptop screen, Patrick doesn’t bother to look up at first. He uncrosses his protesting ankles from where they’re stacked one of the top of the other on the opposite arm of the couch, and after making a mental note of where he is on the page, Patrick closes the laptop halfway. He feels light-headed the moment he lifts his eyes to William’s, the rough transition from back-lit to reality, and Patrick tentatively asks, “Yeah—?” 

“It’s a little heady,” William admits. He’s fiddling with something in his hands and looks nervous, and he hesitates as if the comment is a personal insult. Patrick shrugs. William says bluntly, “I found this.” 

The envelope in William’s hands is made of cheap stationery paper, creased at the corners, and a light blue. It looks to have spent the better part of a year or more abandoned. William strides to the couch, no more than two steps, and extends it towards Patrick. The corner bends slightly under his thumb. 

Patrick asks dumbly, “Is it for me?” He sets his laptop on the floor and shifting on the couch, he reaches for William’s hands. “Did you open it?” 

“It was in the back of the book. I’m sure it’s for you.” The stack of paper changes hands, and Patrick looks between the envelope and William’s thoughtful expression and frowns. “I didn’t open it,” William says, nearing defensive, and when Patrick nods, “You remember we were going to go out tonight, right?” 

“Fuck. Yeah, sorry.” 

“I’m going to shower before we go out.” 

Patrick nods again and turns the envelope over in his hands. It’s clean, the back is still sealed, and the paper is dry, catching on his fingerprints. He waits for the sound of the latch on the bathroom door before he slips his pinkie finger under the folded flap and rips the paper. The inside card is stiff. There’s no date inside, but Patrick does the frenzied math in his head and reads; 

> _Patrick,_
> 
> _Here’s a piece of me for you— before they take all the good parts out of it and it’s not mine anymore._
> 
> _You know I’ve lied to you twice?_
> 
> _1\. I “forgot” to tell you that I hooked up w/ someone from school. (I told you later but you won’t remember)_
> 
> _2\. When I said I tried really hard not to like you_
> 
> _Love, Pete_

Patrick turns the card over in his hands and frowns. He wonders what he would do with the card if he wasn’t being herded out the door within minutes. Sit on the counter, probably, with his ankles tucked under his knees and chewing on his cuticles until he can’t make excuses for staying awake any longer, staring at Pete’s name penned into the bottom of the card. Leave it on his minuscule coffee table, maybe, to encounter in passing and pretend he doesn’t see until it finds its way in between the couch cushions of its own volition. Shove it between the laundry soap boxes in the recycling bin and never think of it again, probably not. 

He folds the back of the envelope into itself and stashes it in his coat instead, zippered into the inner pocket with his wallet and keys, and then he forces himself to get ready to out, which requires clothes that fit and a comb. He’s suddenly hungry as well, having been ripped from the computer after not eating all afternoon. 

William joins him in the kitchen when he’s finished with his shower, and without being prompted, Patrick lies, “It was like a thank you note.” The look William gives him is questioning, but Patrick stares at the counter and pretends not to notice. He clears his throat and quickly clarifies, “Like, for helping with the book.” 

“Oh,” William says. “That’s nice.” 

“Yeah.” Patrick peels back the foil on a container of yogurt and tosses it in the direction of the trash can. It lands on the floor, and William stoops to pick it up and places it carefully in the garbage. 

And, “Yeah,” Patrick answers later, when William asks him if he wants to stay for a while after dinner and drinks out, and, “Yeah,” is Patrick’s easy reply when William asks if he wants to stay for the rest of the night. “But I can’t, I have—” He stumbles over any reasonable excuse and tells William in a whisper, “I’ll come over tomorrow for breakfast."

The juxtaposition between them is off-putting; William stands shirtless in the doorway, indulgent and sleepy-looking, and Patrick burrows further into his own coat. He wraps his fingers, still slightly sweaty, over William’s bare hips and feels William’s exaggerated sigh under his palms. Patrick laughs. 

William’s mouth is hot and still slick, and Patrick could live here— almost does live here. Patrick swallows the wet noise his tongue makes, and William replies with an approving sound and mumbles, “You can just shower here, stay for the night— again.” 

There’s a cat waiting for Patrick at home and a blue envelope poking him in the ribs each time he leans forward to kiss the corner of William’s mouth, but nevermind, because Patrick wants to stay. 

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees for the infinith time in one evening. William’s grin mocks Patrick’s feigned reluctance. 

Even later, in the early hours of the morning, William flops back against the mattress and turns his nose to the ceiling. Sitting cross-legged on the bed with the covers piled beside him and his laptop on the flat sheet, Patrick glances at him from the corner of his eye. William carefully returns the look and says, “I can’t stop thinking about Pete’s book.”

Patrick chews on his thumbnail and goes back to staring at his keyboard. “Yeah,” he answers. “Pete will do that to you.”

“I don’t understand the ending,” William gripes. He peers at the screen of Patrick’s laptop and stretches out across the mattress. Ignoring Patrick’s cautionary look, he pokes Patrick’s bicep with his toe. “You need to take a break from that, by the way, because you’re going to fry your eyes,” and Patrick closes the laptop with a hostile click. The silence in the room is thick before Patrick interrupts it.

“What’s not to get?”

William continues, “At the end, when she goes to the café, she thinks he won’t be there. She thinks he’s dumb, like he failed the test.”

Patrick scratches the back of his head and blinks. William was correct in assuming that he needed a break; his eyelids stick together and a headache is blooming above his temples. Patrick yawns. “That’s not what I read. I thought Luca was worried she was wrong.”

“In the wrong place?”

“No,” Patrick replies shortly, and laughs. “No, wrong like he wasn’t going to wait for her, or he didn’t care about her and it was all for nothing. They don’t talk, it’s all coincidence— or it’s fate, or a really good guess, maybe.”

“A good guess,” William echoes. “It’s like a riddle.”

“I guess,” Patrick confirms reluctantly. Still lying supine across the mattress, William gives him a sleepy smile that makes Patrick feel like he’s been punched in the chest.

“It’s a riddle.” William’s smirk grows. “You don’t want to talk about this.”

Patrick leans back against his elbows. He does want to talk about it, more than before, as if William has gained substantial insight on the topic after reading a few hundred pages from Pete’s mind. The interest is all-encompassing, and Patrick sighs, contented. “He was working on it before we ever met, you know.”

William’s raised eyebrow asks, _so?_ He gives Patrick a long look and reaches up to brush hair from Patrick’s forehead. It’s getting longer now, long enough to stick in his eyebrows and the occasional eyelash. 

It tickles. Patrick wrinkles his nose and interrupts William’s silent admiration of his face. “You know what was in that envelope?” 

His hand still threaded in Patrick’s fine hair, William shrugs. “No, but I have a pretty good guess.” 

Patrick impersonates him perfectly. “A good guess.” William grins, and Patrick makes an irritated, dismal face. “I tried really hard not to like you like I do.” 

William laughs. “I know.” 

Patrick’s face twists further. “Are you okay with it?” 

“I’m okay with this.” William shrugs again. 

Patrick hums, thinking, and pulls William’s hand to his mouth to kiss the heel of his hand, the inside of his wrist. “I’m trying to be.” 

William side-steps the comment and tells him, “You need to cut your hair before you go to New York. You look scrappy.” 

_February, Year V_

The weekend before his flight to the States, Patrick wakes up in William’s sprawling apartment to an empty bed and a silent apartment. He exhales sleep with a long sigh and lets his eyes trace the perimeter of the room; they meet the opposite corner of the room, the circular light embedded in the ceiling above William’s bed, and finally, his phone on the nightstand. He thinks for a moment, gaze flickering between the doorframe and the phone, and says aloud, “Hey, William?” 

He waits for a reply that doesn’t come. The apartment is deserted, and Patrick drags himself out of bed, pulls clean underwear from the top drawer of William’s vanity, and underwear in hand, stares at his crusty eyes and dark circles, the result of another week full of never-ending work and lacking in sleep. The drawer requires a wrestling match to close, and still cursing, Patrick calls Hayley while making the short trip between the bedroom and the kitchen to make breakfast for himself. 

Covers pulled up to her chin but not yet asleep, Hayley blindly taps at the round green button on her phone screen and bemoans, “It’s so late, Patrick. It’s, like, almost two.” 

Patrick winces and says honestly, “I’m sorry. I thought it was early enough here. I was going to text you and say not to call me back if you didn’t pick up.” 

“You get five minutes,” she tells him, “And I get fifteen.” 

“Fine.” Patrick takes a quick gulp air and divulges, “I’m worried that my project is going to be fuck-awful. I don’t know what I’m going to do if it goes badly, and I definitely don’t know what I’m supposed to do if it goes _well._ ” He pauses and unconsciously waits for Hayley’s encouragement. “It’s not going to be awful,” he retracts. “I’m just—” 

“You can’t talk to William about this?” Hayley interrupts. She seems to sense that Patrick takes slight offense at this and rubs at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Why?” she asks more gently. “Why’s it going to be so awful?” 

Feeling rejected, Patrick peers into the room next to the kitchen and pours the rest of his breakfast into the garbage can. He backs out of the previous statement carefully. “I’m just stressed, I think. It just feels a little above my pay-grade. This was supposed to be good for me, and now I’m dreading seeing my boyfriend and my hair is coming out in clumps. Clumps, Hayley, like a— I’m like a wooly mammoth.” 

Hayley laughs. “You’re just stressed out. You like your boyfriend.” 

“Yeah, I do, and it’s so scary.” Hayley hums, understanding, and Patrick confesses, “I can’t wait to see you.” 

The sound of rustling fabric comes through the phone— Hayley changing her shirt or moving her duvet. She lies back against her collection of throw pillows, sweeps her phone from one ear to the other, and reaches for the bottle of hand lotion beside her bed. “It sucks around here without you, you know,” she says with a pout, sounding very Muriel Glass. “Can I say my shit now?” 

Patrick starts to excuse her, but she speaks before he can. “I talked to my mom yesterday,” she starts loudly, dramatizing, and with a knowing smirk, Patrick drops his dishes into the sink to wash later and nods. 

He showers once he’s kept up with his end of the deal, listening to Hayley’s ranting about her mother’s latest injustice unto her, and when he’s finished changing into his clean clothes stuffed into the bottom drawer of William’s dresser and toweling his hair in the vanity mirror, Patrick pads back into the kitchen to find that William has made coffee and is unloading groceries from a paper bag. Patrick wriggles onto the counter and gives William a cursory once-over. He asks, “Where’d you go?” 

William sets his mug of coffee on the counter next to Patrick’s thigh and pries Patrick’s knees apart to stand between them. “To get something for breakfast,” William tells him gently, “For you.” 

Patrick touches his mouth to William’s, barely a kiss. “I already ate,” and when William plants his hands on Patrick’s thighs and rolls his eyes, Patrick wraps dextrous fingers around William’s elbows and falls backwards against the counter, pulling William with him. “No,” Patrick mumbles, laughing. “No, no, don’t worry about it. I can eat again.” 

“What did you find to eat?” 

Patrick ignores him. Faces pressed close together, Patrick glances between William’s soft lower lip and short eyelashes, tucks a curl of hair behind William’s ear, and asks, “Hey, for my presentation this week— do you think I can borrow your watch?” 

William gladly lets him borrow the watch, and William helps him with his bags on the ride to the airport. It’s unnecessary, Patrick could have easily managed by himself, but he’s grateful for the escort and the consequent send-off, especially when William wraps him in a hug that lifts him off the sidewalk. Patrick grins into William’s armpit as William tells him, “I would tell you if you lose it, you can replace it, but—” 

Patrick glares at him, mostly joking, and with his fingers wrapped around William’s watch, Patrick leans in to kiss him and says, “I’m going back in time.” 

“It’ll catch up,” William replies, and turns Patrick’s wrist to peer at the watch face. “Go catch your flight.” 

Patrick spends his flight capitalizing on his ability to fall asleep anywhere, and after checking in with both Hayley and William and ordering Chinese take-out, he spends Thursday night pacing across the carpet in the New York hotel room like a caged zoo animal, reciting the presentation script to himself. He doesn’t feel tired at all and tries to fall asleep, but it doesn’t come easily, the consequence of a messy conglomeration of jet lag, the caffeine from the afternoon’s coffee, and a state of mild panic regarding the looming presentation, made worse by his discipline in going to sleep early. He falls asleep eventually with the air conditioning at its maximum capacity and worn out from nerves.

He calls William from the café the next morning in search of a little encouragement, or a pep talk, and gets nothing in reply. Patrick plugs his other ear with his index finger and says into the phone, hoping voicemail will pick up his words even in the busy coffee shop, “Hey. I just wanted you to tell me I’m going to be fine at my presentation but you must still be at work. I’m a little nervous.” Patrick presses his knuckles into the corners of his eyes. “It’s going to be fine, though. I’ll call you again when I’m done. I miss you already.” 

Even if he doesn’t get to hear William’s voice, leaving the short voicemail still makes him feel better. So much better, actually, that he forgets to be nervous for the rest of the morning. He’s certain that he makes a decent first impression, the presentation runs smoothly, and he nails every question that Victoria’s acquaintance fires at him. He makes it through the presentation without vomiting, and hopes the sweat pooling in the divots on either side of his spine isn’t visible through his jacket. He’s invited out for lunch, and with his tea and breakfast sandwich long gone, Patrick accepts the offer. 

It goes shockingly well. Victoria’s friend promises him a phone call later, and Patrick shakes his hand and leaves the restaurant feeling light-headed and unsteady on his feet from the loss of adrenaline. The day had gone better than expected, he thinks, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s jet-lagged, exhausted, and still stressed. He can’t think of anything to do but to call William. 

William doesn’t answer the phone for the second time in a day, and Patrick realizes with a suffocating disappointment that it’s too late, and William is likely in bed. He doesn’t know why it hurts; Patrick scrubs at his moistening eyes with his knuckles and leaves another voicemail, 

“Hi, it’s Patrick. I know it’s late, but I just finished up with my proposal, and I had to tell someone that I think it went really well. I wanted to tell you it went well. I don’t know what that means— for the project, or that I wanted to tell you.” A car honks in the street, and Patrick’s breath catches in his chest for a moment. “Sorry about that. Call me back tomorrow? Okay, bye.” 

That evening, he crawls between hotel bedsheets earlier than he has in years and sleeps sixteen hours. It’s still not enough. 

He gets William’s reply voicemail while he’s strolling down the tiled walkways of Logan the following morning after the connecting flight from New York to Boston, one hand supporting the duffel bag on his shoulder and his phone in the other. He expects William’s voice to be a relief, a stress-free moment after a long day yesterday and a morning with no down-time, but William’s voicemail sounds hollow, captious even.

“Hey, it’s William. Uh, was asleep when you called last night, but I’m sure you killed it at the presentation; I want to hear all about it later. Hope you make your flight easy. It should be short, right? Let me know if you need anything. I’ve missed you this week.” A soft noise comes through the phone before William says shortly, “Bye,” and the voicemail ends with a click. 

Patrick keeps the phone pressed to his ear, waiting for the second voicemail. This one sounds cleaner, like William is more awake than previously. 

“Hey, it’s me again. I just wanted to make sure you got off your plane and everything. Do you think we’re a little off lately? Or, maybe it’s just the time difference, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me.” There’s a poignant pause. “I’m ready to see you when you get home. Call me back if you have a minute to talk.” The second voicemail also ends with a click. Patrick stares at his phone for longer than necessary before he saves both messages to analyze again later. He should really call. 

Getting on the train outside of the airport shuttle is a relapse, a swift force of habit pulled from the depths of his mind. It happens unconsciously and it’s not a mistake. Patrick steps back into the cold tunnels of the Boston public transportation system with a practiced ease, adjusts his backpack and bag on his shoulders, and dials the phone with his other hand. Phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder, Patrick thumbs through his wallet for his train card with freezing fingers and prays it still holds value for a train fare, enough to get to his downtown hotel at least. 

The announcement for the arriving train sounds over the loudspeaker, and Patrick shoves his CharlieCard at the card reader and waits for the green light. There are brakes squealing on the other side of the turnstile, and William answers the phone at the same time that Patrick says, with emphasis, “Shit.” 

William greets him in a cautious tone. 

“I got your voicemail— er, voicemails,” Patrick explains hurriedly, “And I have to go, I’m just telling you I got here.” 

“Got where?” 

“Home,” Patrick answers. He shoves himself through the small space and his card back into his pocket. “Boston.” 

Over the sound of train announcements and the bell of the approaching train, William asks carefully, “Can we talk for a minute?” 

“Um— I can’t talk long. I’m meeting someone to go out in a few minutes. Can I call you back later?” 

“Going out? With who?” 

Patrick knows it’s unintentional and it still feels like a trap. The city is old wounds for Patrick, and William by proxy. Patrick considers starting an argument. “Just a friend,” he blunders instead, and in a half-jog, takes off towards the train platform. “I talk to them on the phone sometimes.” 

“Just Hayley?” 

It’s not Hayley, it’s a co-op that Patrick had always felt a particular paternal fondness for, but he has plans to meet up with Hayley later. It’s the easy way out, and it wouldn’t be a lie, but Patrick rarely takes the easy way out. He asks pointedly, “And why does it matter?” 

William ignores him. “Have fun and be safe.” 

“I’ll call you later,” Patrick replies.

“Love you,” William tells him lightly. 

“Bye,” Patrick says. He barely makes the train, and high on adrenaline and slightly sweaty, he drops his bag from his aching shoulderto the grimy train floor. His competitive streak rejoices. 

Patrick lies on his stomach across the bed in the Godfrey hotel later in the evening, having spent most of his day talking music and catching up on the local scene over coffee, on the phone and frustrated with William for the third time in a day. The mattress is uncomfortably firm, and Patrick shoves a pillow under his chest and sighs into the phone. It rings twice more; Patrick internalizes the voicemail tone like a personal insult. 

He hesitates before he leaves the message and briefly contemplates ending the call and calling again tomorrow. He feels guilty though, and Patrick rolls to his back across the bed, dangles his feet off the edge, and starts. “Hey.” He frowns, unsure of what to say or how to say it. “I’m sorry things are weird this week. I don’t think I’m good at the long-distance thing. I hope— I think things will be better when I’m home.” He sighs and his mouth twists slightly further. “You’re probably asleep. I’m going to try to get a quick nap before I go out with Hayley,” he says, and then honestly, dripping with transparency, “I really miss you. Call me in the morning.” 

Patrick takes a minute to catch his breath, and then like picking up a bad habit for the second time, he’s back on the phone with Hayley, peering at his phone and weighing their options for a night out. 

“Come over and hang out before we leave,” Hayley suggests. “It’ll be fun, and then we can go out. Where are you staying anyways?” 

“Godfrey?” Patrick answers. “Downtown? I didn’t pay for it.” 

Hayley makes a judgmental noise and tells him, “Here’s your options: we can start at Lir and hop around downtown, or we can hit everything around Harvard and end up downtown. You pick.” 

“Why do I have to pick?” 

“Because,” Hayley replies easily. “You’re my guest.” 

“Barely,” Patrick mutters under his breath, and considers it for a moment. Staying downtown increases the chance he will run into someone he doesn’t want to see, or hasn’t talked to in years, or worse, someone’s he’s talked to within the past two weeks. He chooses the Harvard-to-downtown option, for nostalgic purposes. 

They pre-game at Hayley’s apartment with most of a bottle of red wine and chips from Hayley’s pantry. It’s the kind of tipsy that makes him chatty, looser, and authentically silly; Patrick leans on Hayley’s kitchen counter and pokes fun at Hayley’s boyfriend until he can feel the alcohol. It feels gentle, a buzz like caffeine, and lower stakes than going out with William and friends— no one to impress, no one to pretend he’s fond of, no one to perform for. Hayley, however, seems off-centered, enough that Patrick almost asks her if she wants to stay in instead. He doesn’t and he can feel selfish later. 

“How was the presentation?” she asks when she sees him on the sidewalk outside her apartment, her hands stuffed into the pockets of a bright peacoat. She squints at him against the evening winter sun, and the familiarities obscure Patrick’s vision more than the blinding sunlight. 

Patrick holds his hand to his face and doesn’t meet her eyes, staring across the street above her shoulders instead. He shrugs. “I think it went okay.” 

“Just okay?” She watches for the tell-tale twitch of his upper lip, a dead giveaway that he’s stifling a smile, and envelops him in the warmest hug she can conjure up. “It was good,” she says into his shoulder. “We don’t have to talk about it, I know it was good.” 

“We can talk about it later,” Patrick says. “I need to think about something else for a while, I think.” 

Imperceptibly tipsy when they leave the house, Hayley says, “Let’s take the train,” but they don’t take the train. Hayley drags him on the bus with her fingers wrapped around his thumb, excited and lacking in discernment, and she swears twenty times over that she knows where she’s going. She pulls him onto a bus on the other side of the street, and Patrick lets her ride the bus just long enough to realize it’s not traveling to the intended destination. They’re lost when Hayley tugs him off the bus again, or as lost as one can be at home, and somewhere just outside of MIT. He thinks it’s rather funny. Hayley does not. 

“I’ve never had friends here,” Patrick tells her. He busies himself with the GPS on his phone, eyebrows knitted, and Hayley lifts an eyebrow. He finishes, “Here, at MIT, I mean.” 

Hayley seems dejected, offended maybe, and has been for most of the night. She watches him mess with the GPS and after sighing, asks, “Do you have a cigarette?” 

“Yeah, of course.” Patrick fishes around in his pocket. He finds a lighter first, presents her with the lighter, and digs into the opposite pocket. Hayley gives him a patient look, and Patrick says, “I thought I did. I think I might have left them in my room— or I’m out. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Hayley replies quickly, and Patrick returns to squinting at his phone. 

“Oh,” he says suddenly. His fingers swipe over the phone screen. “We could go to Toad.” 

Hayley makes a soft noise with her mouth. “It’s too late to go up near Harvard now.”

Patrick only shrugs, and after a moment, suggests, “We could go look at my old apartment.” 

Hayley stares at him, arms crossed over her chest stiffly. Her breath gathers in the cold air around her face, giving the illusion of cigarette smoke even if Patrick’s pockets are destitute. She shrugs further into her coat, and Patrick suddenly wishes for a cigarette of his own, or to be violently drunk. “Why?” Hayley demands. “You can’t go in there or anything.” 

“Well, why not?” Patrick counters. “I’m curious. We can just go look at the building. I want to spy on who lives there now.” 

“No, you don’t,” Hayley snaps. She twists the toe of her shoe against the sidewalk, and Patrick realizes he really doesn’t want to know what imposter lives in his old apartment. He doesn’t want to know who lives as his life-double, who sleeps in his old bedroom, and if they’ve thrown out his ratty thrifted couch yet. He hopes the answer to the latter is yes, and in equal parts, no. Sacred events had transpired on that couch, on those peeling linoleum countertops, and in that shower with the sliding plexiglass door. 

Patrick’s fingers twitch in his pockets, and he says petulantly, though he’s not arguing, “Fine, you still want to go downtown, back to Lir?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Hayley replies, and Patrick calls a car. The weather is tepid for February but still unpleasant, and in her leggings and scarlet peacoat, Hayley folds herself further into her outerwear. She gives Patrick a miserable look, and unthinkingly, Patrick wraps his forearms around her shoulders in a warm hug. She seems to relax then, despite the change of plans, and sighs. Patrick gives her a curious look, and she says, sounding slighted, “Sorry about the bus situation.” 

“Oh.” Patrick frowns. “I don’t care.” 

They’re quiet for another moment. Hayley leans into his shoulder, and they stand on the street corner waiting for the car in a comfortable embrace. The minutes feel as if they are approaching a soft eternity; Patrick’s frozen fingers are unthawing from behind entwined together, even if his toes are numb. Their silence stagnates eventually, and Patrick asks carefully, “Are you okay?” 

Hayley’s face contorts further in thought. “Yeah,” she replies, pauses on a stunted inhale, and asks, “How come you never asked me out?” 

Patrick blinks from behind his glasses, freezing where they’re pressed against his nose from the back of Hayley’s head. The fine hair at the top of her skull itches his nose, and Patrick sniffs. The temperature air on the corner of Brookline and Valentine Street drops ten degrees, and Patrick’s toes are fully frozen in his worn shoes. He wiggles his big toe; he can feel the sidewalk beyond the thin sole and his sock. He says quietly, truthfully, “I didn’t know you wanted me to.” 

“I don’t now,” she replies sharply. “But maybe at some point, when I was younger.” 

He tries not to stiffen, arms still wrapped around the top of her chest. “Hayley,” Patrick says gently. 

This makes Hayley laugh. She gives him a challenging look, almost daring, and one half of her face flutters. Patrick holds her closer. 

“Remember when I bought you stick-on nails at CVS and you chewed them all off while we watched _Love, Actually?_ ” 

Patrick swallows, his tongue thick behind his teeth, and he says again, “Hayley.” She grins with only her eyes, and then Patrick tilts his face slightly at the same time that Hayley rocks forward on her tip-toes, and Hayley’s mouth is on his before Patrick has a moment to think about any immediate consequences. Hayley holds him there with fingers splayed across his cheekbones, and her dainty nose nudges his. Patrick makes a noise in concentration, and Hayley smiles slightly against his mouth. 

Hayley’s mouth feels different from anyone he’s kissed in recent memory. The lipstick she is wearing is only slightly off from the color of her lips, barely noticeable in the dark, but Patrick can feel it on the soft inside of his lower lip. It’s dry, chalky even, and tastes almost bitter. It’s too much _girl_ , with Hayley’s soft skin and feminine perfume. Her coat is soft too, where it brushes against the inside of his wrist. Hayley reaches behind his neck to pull him only closer, and Patrick’s eyelids flutter against her cheekbones. He exhales softly, through his nose, and his hands slide to frame Hayley’s waist. 

The car pulls up the curb and honks, startling them both. Hayley jumps backwards, further into Patrick’s bent elbow, and she peers up through her mascara and laughs without smiling. “Sorry,” she whispers. 

“No,” Patrick says. “It’s okay.” He lets his hands fall from Hayley’s waist and reaches for the car door. Hayley scrambles across the backseat when the handle pops in his grasp, and Patrick swallows and tells her, laughing, “I’ll buy you dinner now, and a drink— but maybe only one or two drinks, because I’m basically out of money.” 

“You’re broke,” Hayley says. She gives him the first real smile he’s seen on her face all night. “I know that’s not your watch.”

“Hayley,” Patrick insists, and her name rolls off his tongue like rainwater off a slick coat. He resists the urge to chew on the inside of his mouth. “Hayley, I am so broke.” 

Hayley unfastens her seatbelt and swings her legs onto the leather seats. The driver gives them a look. Hayley pointedly ignores it, and they share a knowing glance instead. Hayley rests her head on Patrick’s shoulder and slides down his chest with every minor bump along the road, until Hayley tips her head back against Patrick’s thigh. She peers up at him from under capsicum-red bangs and pulls an exaggerated grin. “So?” she says, and the wide smile never leaves her face. 

“So, what?” 

“So, how was it?” 

“The kiss?” 

“Yeah, the kiss.” 

Patrick shrugs, noncommittal. “It didn’t do anything for me,” he laughs, teasing but truthful. Hayley’s hand flies up to cover his mouth, and Patrick ducks away from her and laughs harder. The driver gives them a second look. 

“Because you’re _in Like_ ,” she says, “Because you like someone so much more than you think you do.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees, and laughs again. “You’re probably right.”

She’s right, and Patrick is beginning to see it more clearly, subdued during the day and brighter at night. She’s pretty, Patrick thinks, like his sister or Nate’s girlfriend, but untouchable— not like a string of summer flings in rapid succession, unlike William, unlike Pete. Patrick brushes the ends of her hair away from her, and with Hayley’s head in his lap, buzzed enough for it to be fun, Patrick feels the creeping sense of normalcy crawl through the pores of his skin and settle within. There’s a thin line of tension between them, though, and it’s been there all night. It’s been there since before the kiss and maybe before they even saw each other face to face. He’s eager to dissipate it, even more so when Hayley demands, “For real, why didn’t you ever ask me out?” 

Patrick shakes his head, and Hayley’s grin spreads impossibly wider. “I don’t know,” Patrick admits. He rolls his eyes to the dark sky through the sun roof and lets his mouth fall open. “You were just off-limits.” 

“Oh my God,” Hayley starts. She rolls her eyes and shoves the rest of her hair from her eyes, Patrick’s hand away from her face. “Off-limits, like that ever stopped anyone.” 

“Okay,” Patrick replies, and laughs. “It never occurred to me.” 

She doesn’t seem quite satisfied, but regardless, her eyes flutter closed and the corners of her mouth curl upwards. 

So they end up at Lir, finally— and Patrick gets wasted like he’s never been wasted before. Emotionally wasted, that is, like a shaken can of Coke or a midnight thunderstorm. If the night follows its usual trajectory, Patrick estimates he has an hour before he stops being fun and starts being sappy— sappy as in laying across Pete’s lap, a wordless request to be doted on, or picking benign arguments with William just to be told to stop, or enthusiastically complementing Hayley’s latest magazine contribution. 

Hayley throws her arm around Patrick’s shoulder and phone at the person nearest to her that looks young enough to know how to use it. “Can you take a picture of us?” she asks excitedly. “Take a picture of us with the staircase— please, before we forget later.” 

Hayley pulls him to the third step from the floor on the spiral staircase and the flash goes off before either of them have a chance to think about it. Patrick is certain his eyes are closed. “Wait,” Hayley says. “Take another.” 

“Pick something for me,” Patrick tells her when they finally take a seat at the bar. “I want something serious.” 

Hayley’s eyes flicker in excitement. “What kind of serious?” 

“Anything but tequila.” 

Thinking, Hayley pulls on her lip before she leans across the bar, ankles crossed below the bar, and motions for the bartender. “Hi,” she says. “Can I have a Basil Grey? Thanks, and can you tell me what’s in an— Elysian Space Dust?” 

Patrick takes in the atmosphere while Hayley orders her drink of choice.  The bar is busy but cozy rather than uncomfortable, and seems to be devoid of anyone he knows. The central spiral staircase and imposing glass storefront don’t complement the cheerful aura of the guests inside. This is Patrick’s only long-term complaint about the bar, which had become a staple space for Patrick et alia over the years. He shrugs off his thick winter coat for the time being and leaves it hanging over a rung between the legs of his barstool. 

“Want to hear something you’ve never heard me say before?” Patrick asks her when she’s paid for her drinks. She slides his Basil Grey across the bar and wraps her mouth around the straw in her drink. She’s ordered something cherry-flavored, sickly sweet, and Patrick pulls a distasteful face. 

“I doubt it,” Hayley says around her straw, “But you can try me. What is it?”

“I miss the co-ops.” 

Hayley laughs. “Why?” 

“I don’t know,” Patrick answers. “It’s nice to pawn the work off on someone else for a while sometimes, honestly. Working on the usual stuff plus the new project is just— it’s a lot.” 

Hayley studies him over her pink drink. “It’s good for you.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees. “You know she gave me this job to do exactly this. I’m not mad about it but it does make me think.” 

“That’s new,” Hayley teases, and laughs. Patrick swats at her. “Think about what?” 

“I don’t know.” Patrick shrugs. “Like, what would have happened if I turned down the job and I just stayed here, kept my apartment in Cambridge and the suck-ass commute to the office, and played my cards on an actual relationship?” 

Hayley mulls it over, poking at the floating cherries between the ice cubes with her straw. “Um— you would have been able to keep up the ruse for a little bit, secretly regretted not trying it, and break up eventually when the resentment got to you. Maybe then you’d have done something stupid— something stupider than—” 

“What, stupider than ditching my perfectly fine life just to fuck around with something else for a bit?” Hayley shrugs, and Patrick says drily, “Yeah.” He drags his fingertip around the wet rim of his half-empty cocktail glass and upon noticing that Hayley is watching him over her hands stacked on top of each other, finishes, “I think I’m letting the resentment get to me.” 

“It’s not stupid,” Hayley insists. She touches his wrist. Hayley’s phone vibrates and chimes from the pocket of her coat and she jumps. “Hold on,” she tells Patrick quickly and steps away from the bar to take the call. “It’s the boy,” she tells him when she returns. “He says it’s time to start wrapping up for the night.” Hayley motions to the door with a quick tilt of her head, and Patrick nods prematurely. “Coffee to sober up before we go home?” 

Patrick considers the suggestion through the alcohol. “Sure,” he says a second later. “Irish or regular? There’s a Pavement on Newbury.” She nods, and Patrick asks, nervous and only half-joking, “Hey, what’s he going to think about the kiss?” 

Hayley shakes her head, grinning again. “He won’t care, he’s the best,” she says. “I had you, and I’ve got him now, and you’ve got Pete.” Patrick frowns, and Hayley exaggerates, “It’s just a kiss! Coffee?” 

Patrick opens his mouth to correct her and stops himself. In some alien way, she’s right. “Yeah,” he agrees instead. “Let’s go, coffee.” 

Mentioning the kiss rekindles the quiet awkwardness between them earlier, and the discomfort mixed with the blanket of frigid air outside of the bar makes Patrick feel significantly more sober. Eager to dissipate the tension, Patrick grabs Hayley’s hand in his own on the block of sidewalk between the bar and the coffee shop and sings in half-drunken stupor, “Oh, Georgia, no peace I find; just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind—” 

“Georgia on my mind,” Hayley finishes in mock baritone, and then together, loudly, “Other arms reach out to me,” all the way to Pavement. 

The coffee shop is desolate, occupied by no one but the two of them and a singular male barista. The sudden change of scenery catches Patrick unexpectedly, and he’s tired without warning. He collapses into a chair beside a small round table and drops his forehead to the surface of the table. His eyes close and he barely notices when Hayley leaves the table to order a coffee for each of them. She doesn’t ask him what he wants. 

“Hey,” Hayley says. She sets down the cup in front of Patrick on the table. “I never asked— how’s it been with William this week?” 

Patrick scrubs at his eyes before he reaches for his coffee. “Weird,” he says simply, and takes a sip of coffee. 

Hayley hums. She spins his iced coffee on the table and asks, “How weird?”

“I don’t know.” Patrick chokes on the remnants of his coffee at the back of his throat and tries again. “Just like we can’t get the timing right for anything— stupid shit, but it’s still weird. It’s fine, though. I guess that’s the good part of— um, of being friends?” 

Hayley looks confused, just short of laughing at him. “Of being friends,” she repeats. 

“We’re friends.” Hayley gives him her usual condescending smile and Patrick continues, “Yeah, but see, we could have been just friends. We’re really good friends, but I really fucking suck at the relationship thing.” 

Hayley does laugh. “Yeah, you’re supposed to be. You’re supposed to be friends.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Patrick says. He swipes his tongue over his lower lip and the pad of his finger over the plastic lid of his coffee cup. Hayley’s bought him a small hot coffee, currently being crushed in his hands. “I’m not making much sense right now.” 

Hayley watches him wipe at his face with the back of his wrist. “See, this is why I can’t take you out,” she says fondly. “You’re fun for, like, two hours and then you just get all moist on me.” 

Patrick laughs and opens his mouth to protest, to tell Hayley that he can be bubbly for more than two hours, but it catches in the back of his throat. Instead, Patrick stares at the dark cherry tabletop and tells her quietly, “I miss him.”

“You’re going home tomorrow,” Hayley replies, and nods as Patrick presses the heels of his hands into his cheekbones. “Oh,” she says and then, “Okay.”She touches the paper coffee cup in front of him and throws a sympathetic look over the table. “You’ve just had too much to drink. Try your coffee and I’ll get you a water and we’ll go home.”

“I’ve already tried it.” 

Hayley’s massive inhale sticks in her throat. “Then take it with you,” she says impatiently. “I’m ready to go home. It’s almost two.” 

Patrick drops his head between his knees and closes his eyes in the car ride between the coffee shop and the hotel. Hayley sighs, her arm resting on the center of his spine, and Patrick mumbles, “I’m fine. It’s a short ride,” and it is.

In the hallway outside his room, Hayley watches him fumble blindly with the door and insists quietly, “Patrick, where is your room key?” 

Patrick rolls his eyes. “In my wallet, which is—” He touches all of his pockets before he finds it. “It’s right here, with my phone and my keys.” He surrenders the keycard and the phone, and Hayley swipes the card in the door and cracks it open. The door opens into a wave of freezing air, and the sudden change in temperature makes Patrick feel momentarily nauseous. 

He shrugs off his coat for the last time for the night and drops it to the top of his duffel bag before he stumbles into bed, still in jeans and his t-shirt. From the doorway, Hayley suffocates his phone and leaves it on the bathroom counter. 

“You think you’ll remember all this tomorrow?” Patrick doesn’t respond, and Hayley laughs, echoing does the long hallway outside the door. “Good night,” she says. “Make good choices, I love you,” and coming from her mouth smeared with lipstick, it sounds truthful. 

“Be safe for me,” Patrick replies. “I ‘ove you.”

♥

Patrick bolts upright in creme-colored hotel bedsheets when his alarm goes off the following morning, with his fingers in his mouth and sweating. He pulls his fingers from his mouth, shaking, and stares at his hands, sticky with spit and shriveled from prolonged moisture. He touches his mouth and it’s warm, slightly puffy under his fingertips. His face is burning from embarrassment or humiliation, and Patrick swears he can taste residual cologne at the back of his throat, bitter and worn— or maybe it’s the remains of the previous night’s alcohol. 

Patrick wipes his hand on the sheets with disgust and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. It’s cold in the room like the previous night, the air conditioner humming below the window, but Patrick doesn’t notice. He pads to the bathroom, leaves the light off, and stares at himself in the mirror. 

_I don’t mean to suggest that I love you the best,_

_I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,_

_That’s all, I don’t even think of you that often._ — Chelsea Hotel No. 2

His phone lies facedown on the marble countertop, and Patrick flips it over in his hand and rolls his eyes, assuming the battery is dead. The phone awakens though, to Patrick’s pleasant surprise while he’s reaching for his toothbrush, and as he’s brushing the taste of last night’s camaraderie out of his mouth, the notifications pop into place, one after the other.

> _William: Missed Call (2)_
> 
> _Keep missing you. Hope you had fun_
> 
> _Call me tomorrow before your flight??_

And from Hayley; 

> _Hayley: Missed Call (1)_
> 
> _Just got home! See u love u_

She ends the text with a kissing face. Patrick laughs with a mouth full of toothpaste, and though he should call William, his head is too swimmy to speak to anyone who won’t fully entertain his current misery. He spits in the sink and fumbles with Hayley’s messages. 

“Good morning,” she says brightly. It’s transparent; Patrick can hear the hangover. “How are you?” 

Patrick considers the scene of his room and notes that the majority of his clothes are still in his suitcase, he’s managed to locate both his phone and wallet, and a lack of candy wrappers proves he’s avoided binging on any sugar not in liquid form. He’s scared to look at the balance of his checking account though, and remembers only the first hour of his time spent at Lir. “I feel like death,” he announces. “My mouth is never going to taste the same again. I need so much mouthwash.” 

Hayley groans and scrubs at her eyes, groggy in the light of the morning and fighting off a raging headache. “You’re talking way too loud.” 

“That bad?” 

“Wait until you go outside,” she says. “Just wait until you get on the plane.” 

Despite feeling better than he should, he’s still not looking forward to the flight with any enthusiasm. “Yeah,” he agrees, and then, “Uh, weird question.” He rifles through the top of his suitcase for clean underwear and returns victorious. “I went home alone last night, right?” 

“Yeah,” Hayley confirms quickly. “I dumped you fully clothed on your hotel bed at, like, three. You were pretty much asleep.” She sighs, like melting into the mattress, and Patrick’s eyes flicker to his own mess of sheets, pleading to be warm, safe, and free of the growing wave of nausea that peaks every time he blinks too fast. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Patrick mumbles. He attempts to stand from his crouch over his bag and narrowly avoids stumbling forward. 

“Why?” Hayley asks, her interest piqued. “Are you alone?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes. He clears his throat and winces. “I need to go shower before I catch my flight. I’ll let you know when I get home.” 

Hayley easily agrees, “Sure, I’m going back to sleep.” 

Despite taking the longest, hottest shower he can withstand and stumbling through public transportation with a headache that could kill (a car would be ideal, but after the chunk missing from his checking account, this is his punishment), Patrick arrives at the airport unreasonably early. He buys breakfast reluctantly, eats what he can manage, and fulfills William’s request. 

“Did you have fun?” 

“While I was out with Hayley?” Patrick asks. “Yes. I’m feeling less confident about the meeting, though.” 

“How come?” William asks.

“I’ll tell you when I get home,” Patrick says. “I can’t think straight right now.” 

“How is the hangover?” 

Patrick leans his elbows on the counter and sips at his hot tea with trembling hands. It’s much too hot, scalding water from an empty coffee pot and a cheap tea bag, and Patrick shakes his head after burning the inside of his mouth and quickly sets the paper cup down next to his half-eaten bagel on the raised table in front of him. He replies, “I’m self-dosing with sunglasses and Advil— like Kanye West?” William is quiet on the other end, and Patrick says into the emptiness, “Can’t wait to see you. I’m exhausted.” 

William pauses before he agrees. The silence is awkward. “Can we talk when you get home?” William asks. “It’s nothing bad, I just— It feels like we’re a little off this week.” 

“Yeah. You’ve said.” 

“Can we go to dinner?” 

“I don’t know,” Patrick answers. “Can we figure this out later? I have so much goddamn work; been putting it off to work on the proposal.” 

“I don’t know if you’re doing yourself a favor taking on this project,” William suggests. 

“I don’t want advice,” Patrick snaps. “I just want you to sympathize with me.”

William corrects himself immediately. “I think this is a huge step-up in your career and I’m incredibly proud of you.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and sticks his finger back in the paper cup. It’s still too hot. He shoves the ill-fitting plastic cover over the rim of the paper cup, and says his hurried goodbyes to William, even if he’s more than on time for his flight. He strolls down the carpeted walkway to the gate without looking up from the floor, and in a leather chair at his gate, Patrick pulls his hat over his eyes, over his sunglasses, and pretends to read his book until they call for his boarding group. 

♥

“I’m pleased with how it went,” Patrick tells Victoria on Tuesday (he sleeps through Monday), sitting across from her in his usual spot in her office. The coffee mug on her desk reads, _mom hair don’t care._ He’s never bothered to ask if she has children, but somehow, he guesses she doesn’t. “About actually starting it though, you’d have to talk to your contact. He’d know better than me right now.” 

“I’ve already talked to him,” Victoria casually informs him. “I want to know what you think about it.” 

This information does not ease Patrick’s anxieties. He scratches at the back of his neck where the tag on his shirt refuses to lie flat. Victoria reaches for her coffee and makes it clear that she’s not offering any further explanation, and Patrick tells her carefully, “It seems like there’s a real market. Definitely niche consumers, and you’d need someone there— preferably someone with new market experience and knows what’s already out there, and it would obviously have to be oriented towards US artists. ” 

Victoria takes a sip from her mug. The underside is pink. She asks, “Do you want to know what he said?” 

_No,_ Patrick thinks to himself. _No_ , Patrick says to himself, because a good report opens possibilities that Patrick has not let himself consider— his own start-up, a second relocation, a pay-cheque he controls. Patrick says, “Sure.” 

“He says he wants to see it in five years and I told him that wasn’t happening. Then he said he thinks it’s going somewhere, and that I’d be stupid not to keep you involved. He thinks I should go _all-in_ with the investment costs and he’ll match it.” 

Patrick blinks. “That’s— that’s crazy, that’s awesome.” 

Victoria gives him a thin smile. “You wrote the proposal. What’s the next step?” 

Patrick grabs for his folders on the desk, though he doesn’t need to. “Initial investment stuff— all the pre-market work is done, I did that.” He lists off the next steps in the proposal. “Setting up accounts, registry, branding.” 

“Great,” Victoria says blandly. “Who’s going to do that?” 

“I’m sure you won’t have a problem finding someone. I can help, I know lots of kids who’ve graduated recently who would love to—” 

Victoria sets her mug down on the desk with force. “No,” she says, shakes her head, and laughs. “I’m asking if you want to move to New York.”

Patrick opens his mouth, blinks, and closes it again. Unsure and close to stuttering, Patrick starts, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can do that.” He frowns and slides the folders over the surface of the desk. “I’m just— I just moved and it cost me so much.” 

“We can help you with the relocation costs.” 

Patrick’s frown deepens. “It’s still so much. I don’t think I have enough experience in the growth aspect either. I’ve never really worked anywhere but here and the start-up right out of school, and as far as starting it goes, I’m not, uh— filling a void.” 

Victoria doesn’t seem interested in taking no for an answer. “You can have some time to think about it if you want,” she offers. 

Patrick’s throat feels dry and he chews on his lower lip. “What if I wrote up a complete business plan and helped someone else through starting it?” he suggests. 

Patrick doesn’t expect her to be enthusiastic about the proposition, but also doesn’t expect her to say bluntly, “It’s certainly not my first choice.” Patrick pulls his lip into his mouth between his teeth. “Let me think about it,” she says after a moment. “I’ll let you know at the end of the week.” 

_March, Year V_

After much careful deliberation, Pete prints off another copy of the book at Copy Center and gives it to Mikey over dinner one night. The second production of the book is less ritualistic. March had started out a condemning cold but is transforming into a lukewarm spring, and Pete waits outside the storefront for the printer to finish, playing on his phone and observing pedestrians. He texts Mikey to tell him he has a gift and slips back inside to pay for the trees he’s killed.

 _It better not be a ring,_ Mikey replies. Pete snorts in the middle of Copy Center.

The relationship between them remains casual. Mikey doesn’t invite him to meet his family, or get dressed up to go out. He doesn’t have a key to Pete’s apartment or know Pete’s office address downtown. Pete can count the number of times he’s frequented Mikey’s apartment on one hand and he’s never bothered to memorize Mikey’s cell phone number. The relationship progresses over the winter like a transposed summer fling, a _real_ one, so when Pete hands the spiral-bound stack of paper to Mikey over the table after dinner later that night, saying, “Don’t read it if you don’t feel like it,” and, “Don't overthink it,” Pete is genuinely unsure if Mikey will read the book or not. He’s never seen Mikey devour a book like his next breath is printed on the next page, but if he’s being honest, the list of facts that Pete has yet to discover about Mikey is interminable.

“Oh, wow,” Mikey says. He flips through the pages and opens the book across the table. “It’s a lot. Thank you.” Pete gives him a half-hearted smile and wonders if he’ll ever hear of it again.

_April, Year V_

Pete picks him up in the car to get breakfast in the North End on Saturdays, before Mikey gets on the train to spend afternoons with his brother outside the city. Pete is not jealous that Mikey has the opportunity to see his family whenever he wants— at all.

Mikey throws his backpack over the seat and onto the floor of the backseat and leans over to kiss Pete over the console. “Good morning,” he says, fastening his seatbelt. “I finished your book.” 

Pete  lights up immediately. “And what did you think?” 

Mikey struggles to find a bureaucratic response. Pete is staring at him expectedly, excitedly and Mikey is stuttering. “I really liked it, but—” 

“You’re not supposed to tell me if you think it sucks,” Pete interrupts. He seems to have prematurely decided how the conversation will progress. Mikey resists the urge to roll his eyes and gives Pete a look instead. 

“You know it doesn’t suck,” Mikey says. “If you thought it sucked, you wouldn’t have given it to me.” Pete doesn’t offer a response, and Mikey continues, “I have some questions— mostly, when did you write this?” 

Pete shrugs and Mikey realizes that Pete carries more anxiety about the book than is obvious. Mikey decides to withhold the rest of his questions. 

“I don’t know,” Pete answers. “It took me a couple of years.” 

“Two years?” Mikey repeats, incredulous. 

“Yeah, but— that’s, like, normal. Maybe it’s a little long, but two years is a normal amount of time to finish a book.” Pete blinks and continues, “And I finished it a while ago— last year, actually.” 

Mikey nods and wonders if he should drop the entire conversation on its face. Pete stares at him, and Mikey asks, “And now what? Are you going to get someone to publish it for you?” 

“Yeah, but you just write to publishers and ask if they want to put it out for you. You give them a pitch and a sample, and they tell you if they like it.”

“You can’t just, like, pay someone to do it?”

“You do, but you have to get someone to agree to it first. You can get an agent, or you just write to a hundred different editors and hope—”

Mikey’s eyes widen in exaggerated surprise. “A hundred.” 

“Sometimes,” Pete says. “Hopefully not.”

It is becoming exponentially clearer to Mikey that Pete had been prepared for Mikey to tell him the book was disastrous. The following argument is unavoidable. 

“Why’d you want me to tell you I didn’t like it?” 

“I didn’t.” 

“I did like it,” Mikey insists. “And it’s amazing that you finished it either way, because you wrote a book. Not that many people can say that, so if you like it and you get to share it with people who love you, isn’t that enough?” 

Pete scowls. “You would say that.” 

“Pete, I don’t know what that means.” 

“It means that’s not the fucking point.” 

Mikey raises one eyebrow. “It means if the book stresses you out this much, maybe you should put less pressure on yourself for publishing it— lower the stakes a little?

Pete gapes at him. He says shortly, “Yeah, just fuck the book thing, I guess.” 

Mikey backpedals furiously. “Look, please don’t be mad. I don’t know anything about books, can we go eat and forget about the whole thing?” 

“Great,” Pete says, like he’s just heard the worst idea in the world. 

Pete does not forget about it. He’s childishly cheerless throughout breakfast, pushing his food around but not eating anything, and answering Mikey’s well-meaning questions reluctantly. The caffeine supply forces him into a better mood by the time he brings the cheque to the counter, though, and Pete heaves a sigh and hands his card to the girl behind the counter without objection. Mikey gives him a shy smile from across the restaurant and Pete feels significantly better.

“Sorry,” Pete says as they’re leaving. “I think I’m just in a bad mood— was in a bad mood.” 

“It’s okay,” Mikey chimes. “Can you take a joke right now?” 

“I’m fine now,” Pete says, telling himself more than he is Mikey, and, “Sure.” 

“Okay,” Mikey replies. He makes a hyperbolic noise of discomfort and reaches for the floor of the car, under the dashboard. Pete watches him, curious, and Mikey holds up a sliver of a Durex wrapper. He raises one teasing eyebrow.

Pete takes a moment to register what is in Mikey’s fingers, squinting at the tiny shining piece of purple plastic. Pete laughs. Xq“Where’d you find that?” 

“On your floor, under the mat. Who’re you having nasty car sex with?” Mikey inquires, half-mocking. His left eyebrow shifts. 

Pete’s heart flutters. He grins. “You’re joking,” he says. “No one right now. ” 

Mikey laughs. “That much is obvious.” 

“Are you mad about it? It’s probably from— forever ago.” 

“I’m not mad,” Mikey replies nonchalantly. “You really don’t remember what you might have needed a condom for in your front seat?” 

Pete remembers. Incredibly well, actually, vivid enough to fuel many masturbation sessions alone in his shower or making up for what Mikey lacks in bed. His face burns through the grin. “Then what’s the issue?” Mikey stifles another laugh.  “Stop,” Pete says, with no vitriol, bordering on sarcastic. “It’s not funny.” 

“It’s a little funny,” Mikey counters. Pete swats at him, and Mikey grabs at him with his free hand and misses.

“It’s a little funny,” Pete agrees.

“It’s really fucking funny,” Mikey tries, grinning and giggling like a child. He grabs Pete’s wrist. “I’m sorry, Pete, it’s really fucking funny.”

The absurdity of the situation washes over both of them like a cold shower, and Pete wheezes with laughter. Pete laughs until he’s sweating and his cheeks hurt. Pete laughs until his ribs ache and his face burns, and then he takes one look at Mikey’s red face and tears and starts another round of cackling.

“My car gets detailed once a month,” Pete informs him. Mikey laughs harder.

“I’m going to miss my train,” Mikey tells him, wiping at his eyes. He erupts into another needless fit of laughter with Pete close behind. He continues when he can breathe again, “And my brother’s mother-in-law is going to be there, and I hate her so much.”

“Your brother’s—?”

“My brother’s wife’s mother,” Mikey clarifies. Pete thinks about it.

“Then don’t go,” Pete offers. “Come home with me.”

♥

In the late afternoon, Pete stretches his arms above his head and yawns, Mikey’s cheek on his chest and the windows open. The day had turned nice, sunny and warm, and they’d spent most of the day outside, wasted an hour at the bodega a block away, and another hour in the shower. Mikey looks up from his phone long enough to meet Pete’s eyes, and Pete kisses Mikey’s cowlick and says, having already apologized multiple times that afternoon, “I’m sorry for, I don’t know, everything this morning.”

Mikey gives him a small smile. “I’m sorry for picking an argument with you.”

Pete returns the fond expression and asks after a long moment, “Hey, what’d you really think of the book?”

“I liked it,” Mikey replies easily.

“Yeah, but—”

Mikey’s mouth twitches in thought and he interrupts carefully, “Don’t you think it’s a bit personal to sell to strangers?”

Pete seems confused by this. “It’s not personal.”

Mikey stills, lying across Pete’s chest. “You mean that it didn’t happen to you.”

“It didn’t.”

Mikey counteracts, “But it’s about you, it just didn’t happen.”

“This is your circuitous way of telling me no one is going to get it.”

“No,” Mikey says. “I’m telling you that stories that aren’t real can still be true.”


	18. In which Gabe has a wedding.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known.”_ — Richard Siken

_May, Year V_

When Patrick returns from New York, William and Patrick conclude that the friction between then during that week was an anomaly and that they, together, are fine, and everything is fine. Patrick tells William three truths during the conversation, listed as follows:

1\. “I like the New York job but I don’t know if it’s right for me. I don’t want to live in New York.”

2\. “I have to go back to Boston in June for a wedding. It’s for my friend, Gabe.”

3\. “I’m fine going out with you and your friends as long as they aren’t being insulting,” because if he learns anything during his outing with Hayley, it’s, “I’m too old to drink enough that I don’t care what they say about me.”

William is disappointed on Patrick’s behalf about the job. He doesn’t question the wedding, promises that his friends will make an effort to keep their disparaging comments to themselves. The exchange is such a placation that during the midst of the conversation, Patrick conveniently forgets to tell William about three other happenings:

1\. His phantom dream at the Godfrey, because it still feels like he’s seen a ghost. 

2\. The kiss, if for no other reason than who kissed who is still up for debate.

3\. The extent to which he’d refused Victoria’s job offer, because the possibility that William will tell him to take it is very real, and also terrifying.

So everything is fine— it’s fine that Patrick returns William’s watch and doesn’t think to be disappointed, and it’s fine that they spend less time together when Victoria gives him more hours after he turns down the offer, and it’s fine that when William leaves on his first business venture, Patrick has more fun alone with a streaming subscription and his cat in a week than he has since he went out with Hayley three months ago.

Patrick mulls over just how fine it is as he’s stuffing his socked feet in his shoes in preparation for meeting an amalgamation of William’s friends and coworkers for drinks. He has new shoes now, ones without holes in the bottoms of the toes and heels that aren’t littered with scuffs and smudged with sidewalk filth. Patrick says, bent over to tie one shoe, “I can’t stay too long tonight, Victoria wants this thing by Monday afternoon.”

William stares at him until he blinks, unthinking. “Do you still want to come?” William replies. “You don’t have to come, you know.”

“Do you want me to come?

“Of course I want you to come.” When Patrick looks up from his shoes, William wears a deep frown, a strong crease forming above the bridge of his nose. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Patrick answers. He pulls at the loop of one shoelace to ensure it won’t come apart as soon as he steps out the door, and feeling incredibly guilty for asking a question he knows has the possibility of snowballing into a passive-aggressive back-and-forth, Patrick inquires, “Is Adam going to be there?”

Adam, the inspiration for Patrick’s _I fucking hate your friends_ comment from months ago. “Yes,” William begins hesitantly, and then more confidently, “But you don’t have to talk to him. You don’t even have to look at him if you don’t want to. You just have to ignore him or be nice, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t say anything stupid.” Patrick makes a thoughtful noise and makes no promises. 

The pub is farther from William’s apartment than Patrick remembers from previous outings, and as he leans against William’s side on the bus and waits for their stop, Patrick thinks the thoughts he always thinks on the bus— no, not about the early morning drunken kiss, but the ride from his hotel to the office the morning of his interview with Victoria, feeling nauseous from nerves and motion sickness and wiping his hands one at a time on the front of his pant legs, the other wrapped tightly around his phone, wallet, and bus ticket. He remembers reading Hayley’s encouraging text, _Kick them in the teeth and take no prisoners!!! Also we miss u_. She had included a picture of herself and Sonkie, who appeared alarmed at being involved in the picture-taking. Patrick sighs and lets his hand carefully fall to William’s knee. He considers asking at which stop they’re getting off and thinks better of it.

William reads his mind. “Two more stops,” he mumbles, only loud enough for Patrick to hear. William pets the back of Patrick’s head absently, staring at his phone. 

Patrick ignores Adam for most of the night. He chats with Nate across the table with his knees balanced on William’s and nursing a dry wine spritzer and leaves William to his own conversation. Much to Patrick’s disappointment, Nate eventually excuses himself to meet his girlfriend, and now bored, Patrick leans over his thighs and adjusts William’s watch on his wrist to read the time. William holds a blonde ale in the same hand. Patrick is strangely proud of this. 

William opens his mouth to ask Patrick what time to needs to leave, a moment too late. Adam gives a wolfish grin, alcohol-induced, and points to William’s hand. “Did you teach him to drink?” Adam asks. 

William’s forearm slides from Patrick’s shoulders to his waist. Under the table, William touches his hip in a subtle reassurance and explains, “Adam is complimenting your choice of beers."

It takes a moment for Patrick to realize what he’s really being asked, under Adam’s self-satisfied gaze. He shifts a fraction of a centimeter away from William’s hand and instead balances his elbows on the table. “No, he isn’t,” Patrick refutes. “He’s telling you you’re drinking like an American man.” A lull, and Patrick points to himself and adds, “He’s doesn’t, really. If I was drinking that, it’d be way darker.” 

He glances between William and Patrick and asks William, “It’s funny, isn’t it— this pissing contest?” and to Patrick, “What would you know about American men?” Against Patrick’s hip, William’s thumb twitches. 

“Poor choice of words,” Patrick snaps, “And whatever you’re getting at, just ask me.”

“Alright.” Adam stares at him inquisitively for a long moment, then laughs. “Nate says you moved here to get over your ex-boyfriend.” 

There are several obvious lies nested within this statement, and Patrick selects the most obvious untruth to unravel first. He takes a sip of his drink before he answers. William squeezes his side, a friendly reminder to be civil and one that Patrick doesn’t need. “I moved to work with Nate,” Patrick says plainly, and decides to offer as little information as possible without being inflammatory, “So no, we just stopped talking a little while after I moved." 

Adam’s wolfish grin is noticeably mocking. “Stopped talking— did you end it on good terms?” 

“Good enough,” Patrick snaps. 

“Oh my God,” William tries. “Please drop this.”

“It’s okay,” Adam insists before Patrick interrupts. 

“With pleasure.” Patrick grabs William’s hand in his. “William, do you have a ten? I think I’m going to get something else to drink.” 

Patrick shifts in William’s lap and almost misses the dismissive gesture Adam makes in William’s direction. Adam announces, “Hold on a second. I’m trying to make friends.” Patrick gives Adam a disbelieving look over the table, William’s wallet in hand. It feels like an interrogation. “Why’d you break up?

Patrick cracks. “I’m not answering that,” he says definitively, almost nastily. 

“They were never dating,” William says within the same breath. Patrick stands and gives him a look that says, _stop talking, now,_ and William swallows. 

Adam fastens onto the dynamic immediately, glancing between Patrick and William. His mouth twists and he notes, almost thoughtful, “American boys never stick with anything, I guess.” 

Patrick’s face burns. He drops William’s wallet on the table like it’s melting his palm, paper bill clenched in his fist. Adam gives him a challenging look. Patrick turns on the ball of his foot to leave the table, and behind him, William snaps, “What’s wrong with you?” 

Patrick simmers quietly as he maneuvers through tables to get to the bar at the back of the room, praying he appears outwardly unperturbed. His face is bright red under the lights, though, and his hands sweat enough that he’s sure the paper in his hand will disintegrate soon if it hasn’t already. He knows he has only seconds before William will follow, and he barely makes it to the bar, elbows on the dark wood and waiting for a bartender to take his drink order before William gently puts a hand between his shoulder blades. Patrick wheels around to face him. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Patrick doesn’t reply, chewing on the inside of his lip, and William explains patiently, “I know you don’t believe me, but he’s only fucking with you because he likes you.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes to the ceiling and affixes William with a look of complete disbelief. “It’s not fucking funny.” The tension between them fizzles, and Patrick asks in a desperate attempt to short-circuit the impending argument, “Can we go?” 

“It’s not funny,” William agrees, though he looks undecided. “Stay for an hour— not for me, just so he doesn’t think he can do that.” 

Patrick hates when he’s reasonable. William stares at him with eyes that are soft and understanding, and Patrick crosses his arms over his chest and chooses defiance. 

“What’d you tell him?” 

“Nothing yet. It’s not important right now, we can talk about it—”

Patrick interrupts. “You know what? You are free to stay,” Patrick presses, “But I am leaving,” and with that, Patrick hands him the money in his hand, touches his pockets for his phone and wallet, and walks out the door of the pub. Everything is fine until it’s not.

♥

Patrick sits in the doorway of William’s apartment building and smokes, one cigarette after the other, until William appears above him, having just stepped off the bus and looking braced for impact. Patrick peers up at him with his face in his hand. Patrick says, “Hey.” 

“Okay,” William starts. He sighs and throws both hands up in surrender. “Adam asked you a question you didn’t want to answer, and I’m sorry that I answered it.” 

Still insulted, Patrick’s knees feel gelatinous like he’s close to tears, even if he’s sitting down and all he feels is angry. He replies delicately, “That’s not what I’m upset about.” William gives him a critical look. “I’m not upset with you.” 

William prods, “Then tell me what you’re upset about because I don’t want to guess anymore.” 

Patrick grasps at any explanation. Mostly though, he feels nervous, vulnerable on the street outside William’s apartment and fielding anxieties that sound like, _why doesn’t Adam like me?_ and, _does_ everyone _think I’m a hot mess?_ Patrick stuffs one hand in his coat pocket and heaves a sigh. “The commitment thing?” he starts. William raises one eyebrow, and it comes out like the contents of an aerosol can in a hot car. “It’s not about Pete, it’s about me, and I don’t get how you don’t see it. It’s so fucking obvious; they don’t like me and they think we’re only together because I’m poor and I just want someone to fuck around with, like I can’t make up my fucking mind.” Patrick makes a face, like he’s seen something gross. “I know it looks bad. I don’t need anyone else to tell me that, and I definitely don’t need your friends to _heavily imply_ it on our night out.” 

William stares down at him. “Okay,” he says again. He calmly collects his thoughts. “You’re not that poor, and Adam doesn’t know any of that— he doesn’t think that.” Patrick watches him with his lip between his teeth, and William glances between Patrick and the apartment door and William says, “I don’t think you would feel better if it was about Pete.” He hesitates. “Maybe that’s just me. Do you really think you’re the only reason you’re not still together?”

Patrick stares at him, wavering between vitriolic and crushed. “I don’t know!” Patrick exclaims. “How do you want me to answer that?” 

“I’m telling you that you don’t have _commitment issues_ ,” William refutes gently. It sounds like it tastes sour, or uncomfortable on William’s tongue, the end of a joke and the audience doesn’t laugh. William grabs for his hand. “Why do you care what Adam thinks about us?” 

“Because I hate Adam.” Patrick is angry. He doesn’t care that it’s a dig at William and he doesn’t hate Adam, but they’re home and Patrick is prepared to make a scene for himself. 

William’s careful argument follows. “He’s not always like that.” Patrick has no rebuttal to this other than a spiteful glance, and William asks, “Can we please go upstairs?” 

Heavy footsteps on the apartment stairs under heavy soles as Patrick races up the stairwell to William’s apartment with William closely following behind. It gives the illusion of being chased, and in some sense he is, but not by William— rather, a constant need to ruin every opportunity, every relationship that’s handed to him. If he’s not being chased, he’s bolting to escape to the safehouse that is William’s apartment, where it’s appropriate to orchestrate a tantrum or participate in some self-serving crisis. William refuses to give him the satisfaction; the door closes behind him and William leans against the doorframe and begs, “Can we talk about this? It’ll be like fifteen minutes.”

“And then what? I’ll just go home and mope around? Maybe I’ll stare at the wall, for fun,” Patrick snaps. He flings his shoes at the wall. “No.” 

“Then let’s fight about it.” 

Patrick straightens against the wall and against his will, one eyebrow jumps to his hairline. One carefully poised corner of his mouth twitches, stifling a smirk. William looks spooked, like he can’t quite believe the suggestion had been born from his subconscious. He plasters himself against the doorframe, hand still on the doorknob, and clears his throat. William’s pulse seems to vibrate around the small space and his face pales with each passing heartbeat. Patrick lets the seconds tick by just long enough to build suspense and says, stepping quickly into the living room, “Fine, I’ll go first— I think it’s shitty that you let your friends make snide comments about us to your face.” 

William doesn’t catch onto the game as quickly as Patrick had hoped. He deadpans, “They’re just fucking around.” 

Patrick throws his jacket over the back of the couch and reaches for the television remote. Every step is jarring, invisible from where William stands by the door, and Patrick says coolly, “I don’t like that your friends make jokes at your expense.” The deadbolt sinks into place and Patrick feels the inevitable denotation grow hot between his lungs. When he looks up from the remote, William is staring at him from the doorway. He drops his sport coat to the floor and looks between the crumped heap and an attentive Patrick. Patrick finishes, “I think you should get friends that like you.” 

Something in William’s face visibly stiffens. “Maybe you should like your friends less.” 

“Right,” Patrick drones. 

“Do you really want to talk about friends right now?” 

An argument Patrick has been waiting on for months and it feels like breaking the surface whilst halfway to drowning at the beach. Kicking upwards in a half-assed doggy paddle and sucking in air like an addict, he doesn’t care if he inhales saltwater as long as it comes with oxygen and the soaked mop of hair in his eyes is irrelevant if he can see the sun rise tomorrow. He’ll drag anyone down on the way back up. Patrick hums. “I thought we were fighting about friends.” 

It shouldn’t be this easy, and yet— “What is it with you and Pete?” William snaps. “I don’t understand why you defend him like that. You were heartbroken when you guys stopped talking.” 

Patrick gives William a ludicrous and criticizing look and laughs. “I wasn’t _heartbroken_.”

“Fine,” William tries. “I shouldn’t have used that word, but you were upset. It was a shitty thing to do to you. You don’t have to defend him for that.” 

“ _What_ was shitty? We’re friends, and I don’t want your friends to talk about him like that!” 

“Patrick,” William exclaims, exhausted. He laughs shortly. “You’re not friends; you don’t even speak to each other.” 

It hurts more when someone else says it. Patrick fumbles with remote in his hand and tries to put together a coherent confutation, but it’s true. They don’t talk to each other. He hasn’t tried to touch Pete’s book since they’d stopped talking. He hadn’t tried to meet up with Pete while in Boston, thinking that Pete wouldn’t want to meet up, or that Patrick would come to the terrifying realization that he was happier in Boston than he’s ever been four thousand miles away. They don’t talk to each other, so Patrick catches glimpses of Pete through social media and the occasional run-in with Hayley, and makes the best of it. It hadn’t been his decision, and nonetheless, Patrick is of the opinion that it is outside of William’s authority to say whether or not they’re still friends. 

“Thanks,” Patrick mumbles, through with trying to appear unhurt. Patrick glances unsuredly around William’s living room and fights for words. “You win. I’m going to bed and we can talk tomorrow.” Patrick drags a hand through his hair, tosses the object in his hand to the couch, and starts towards the other side of the apartment. William touches his elbow and ignores Patrick’s cold glance. 

“No,” William says stiffly, and Patrick bristles. William stares at him, soft eyes watching Patrick’s, though Patrick’s eyes are considerably redder, moister. “Just hold on a second, we should talk about this. I want to talk about this.” 

Patrick ducks away from his hand and snorts through a developing cascade of snot. “Absolutely not. I’m so— not good at this.”

“Clearly I’m not either,” William announces. “I’m never going to win an argument with you.” A muscle twitches in William’s jaw and Patrick can’t tear his eyes away from it. William clears his throat, and eyes still locked on William’s face, Patrick barely hears him ask, “And if we’re not going to talk about it, then what do you suggest that we should do when this happens?” 

Patrick doesn’t recognize the intonation, beyond frustrated, possibly even angry. Face quickly reddening, Patrick drags his gaze from William’s jaw to meet his eyes and only thinks, _yeah, this_ , when William takes the hint, takes Patrick’s face in his hands, and kisses him, hard. 

“We’re talking about this tomorrow,” William tells him, with no invitation for discussion. 

“No, we aren’t,” Patrick bites back, already hot under his t-shirt, and thinks that he’d do anything tomorrow if William would grab his hips just a little harder. William presses his thumbs into the creases of Patrick’s hips with the retort, and following Patrick’s sharp laugh, wraps his fingers around Patrick’s hips like it’s intentional and drags him to the couch, where they engage in the most physically demanding sex Patrick has participated in since— he would have to think about it later, and later, hands and thighs still trembling, Patrick blindly wipes at his face and says thickly, “I’m sorry.”

William takes a fistful of Patrick’s hair and mutters, “You’re a bit too much, you know that?” 

“I know,” Patrick mumbles, and again, “I’m sorry.” 

William refuses to let it go for the next week, and Patrick refuses to talk about it. 

“I didn’t mean to be insulting,” William says on Monday. “I still shouldn’t have said anything, but—” 

“I wasn’t even mad at you,” Patrick insists. “I’m over it.” 

On Wednesday, “Look, I feel like you’re still upset.”

“I’m serious,” Patrick replies. “I just want to let it go.” 

Patrick avoids talking about Boston like he avoids paying his most recent credit card bill, working up the nerve to even open the envelope and hoping for the least amount of damage possible. Nonetheless, keeping secrets feels dishonest, just short of lying by omission. He’d sworn to himself, fingers crossed, since the beginning that he would be brutally honest with William and (mostly) kept up with it, but he can’t be expected to tell him, “Sometimes I lie awake at night and wish you were my ex-boyfriend.” 

_They never dated_ , William teases.

_American boys never commit,_ Adam taunts. 

_It’s all my fault,_ Patrick tells himself.  Patrick tells himself he’ll get over it. 

♥

On Friday, Patrick leaves the office to meet William for dinner with a long list of apologies in his head, but when William opens his apartment door in a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and his keys looped around his thumb, William impedes before he can speak. He touches his hair and the lock at the same time and takes a deep inhale. “You don’t need to apologize again but— we do need to talk— and no outs.”

Patrick looks him up and down. “Yeah,” he agrees reluctantly. “Okay.” He follows William into the apartment and sits at the small kitchen island like the pre-programmed steps of an ominous fever dream. 

Patrick drops his hand to the counter and the case of his watch clicks against the counter, disrupting the stiff silence. William stares at the countertop and fumbles for words. “I’m—” he tries, and shakes his head. 

“You don’t have to sugar-coat it,” Patrick mumbles. “Just spit it out.”

William laughs softly. His eyes shift from the counter to Patrick’s and he asks with an ill-fitting pleasant expression, “Does this work for you?” Patrick frowns, and William continues hurriedly, “It was working for me because I really like you, but — do you even like me? Because sometimes I think you do and sometimes I think you want something else.” 

Patrick stumbles out with, “Of course I like you,” before he can think of anything more reassuring. He’s panicking from being the center of attention; William makes it about _you_ instead of _we,_ and Patrick wants to bite back something nasty, or cry, or throw himself at William, haul him to the bedroom, and fuck until they’ve figured it out. There’s no figuring it out, though, his options are limited and Patrick is left emotionally destitute. “I don’t know, I’m sorry it’s not obvious— really, I am.” 

He doesn’t know what to expect next, and William seems to have more to say. “I just want to know, because the past week has sucked. Let’s just be honest and say it sucked, and because I already did this. I did the fighting and making up and pretending everything is fine, and I hate it. I don’t want that with you.” He says finally, defeated, “I don’t know what you want, and honestly, I never know what you want.”

“You want to break up.” 

“No, Patrick— I just think we should think about some stuff, and this isn’t— I’m not saying we should break up, it doesn’t have to be a break up, or even a break, we can just—” William freezes for a moment, like a glitch or a victim of radio interference. “We can talk about it and make a decision, or decide to take a break, or, no— let me know if you think we can make this work, because otherwise—” William lets the silence drown out the rest of the thought. 

Patrick slams his foot on the accelerator, the vehicle of his mind in reverse. The faster he makes the decision, rips off the Band-Aid and the dead skin that comes with it, the sooner he can ignore the finality of the decision. The move was supposed to solve his problems, a break from the taxing affair of supporting a start-up failing before it even really began, a time-out from his melancholy self, relief from the late-twenties grind of life. He fantasizes about an apartment of his own, good coffee, financial stability, and gratifying sex, and after two years, Patrick has done little but confirm that one can daydream anywhere. William feels like a new love, and Boston and it’s accoutrements a love he’s known a lifetime. They’re incomparable, but when the walls are caving inwards while Patrick stares at his bedroom ceiling and cerebrates his life, Boston is failsafe. It’s safe to fail in Boston. 

Longing knows no boundaries; Patrick kills time brutally missing the brick brownstones of Tremont Street and dropping in on Hayley for a coffee at Pavement. Boston is a beach house in Newport, and a shitty apartment in North Cambridge, and Pete, and sometimes, Patrick wants. 

He takes the keys out of the ignition, steels himself, and fills his lungs with noxious air. Patrick says, “I think we should break up.” 

William nods, his mouth pressed into a thin line. A hint of a dimple lives on one cheek and Patrick wonders how he’s never noticed it. “Okay,” William replies plainly. “Can we talk about it anyway?” Patrick’s eyes flicker to the door without his permission. William tries, “Humor me, I just got dumped.” 

It’s a very _Pete_ joke, Patrick thinks, to his incredible embarrassment. He takes a moment to compose himself before he replies, the heels of his hands pressed into the corners of his moistening eyes. “Talk about what? Talk about this?"

William sits on the counter to face him. Clad in his modified t-shirt and loose sweats, he looks like he hasn’t gotten out of bed in days. William shoves a mop of hair out of his face and nods. “Yeah,” he prompts, “Just tell me what you think. Tell me anything.” 

There’s a heavy silence in which Patrick stares at the tiled kitchen floor and wipes at his eyes with the hem of his shirt sleeve, and then Patrick confesses awkwardly, “Victoria gave me the job.” 

William laughs. “Yeah, like this.” 

“She gave me the job and I turned it down, because I love it here and I like you, and honestly, I have no fucking money. I gave her an alternative; I told her I could stay here and work with somebody there— one of the kids, you know? She doesn’t want to tell me yes.” 

“Patrick,” William starts, before Patrick interjects. 

“It’s not an excuse and I’m really sorry, but everything’s shit lately and I don’t know what I want.” He takes a shaky inhale and tries again. “No, I do know what I want; I want one friendship I haven’t fucked beyond repair and I want to be in love.” William watches him with an indeterminable expression, almost proud, and Patrick demands, “Why is that so difficult?” 

William shrugs and dismisses the emotional outburst with a carefully-directed hand gesture. “Okay, forget that, you told Victoria no?” Patrick’s face contorts in a grotesque expression of regret, and William laughs, because Patrick doesn’t get it. “No, Patrick, you don’t get it. The woman’s never been told no in her life.” 

Sitting at William’s tiny kitchen island, legs crossed against the cabinets and his chin in his hands, Patrick appears entirely inconsolable. Puffy eyes and still flushed in the face, Patrick wears his misery plainly, and by the frown that deepens with every thought that emerges from William’s mouth, he doesn’t hear any of it. It sounds like a skipping record highlighting every poor decision he’s made. Spontaneous or intensely deliberated, the Universe always responds with a loud no. 

Patrick whines and puts his face in his hands. William nearly cackles. “No, this is why I like you. No one ever tells her no; she set you up and you still told her no.” 

“It’s not funny,” Patrick insists, but the dejá vu hits him then, and while William is still laughing, Patrick tells him through tear-filled eyes, “And it doesn’t even matter, I’ve already used that excuse. This is so fun and I love you, but—” It hurts the first time he says it, pinching at his skin, and Patrick pulls a grimace. William gives him a sympathetic look and Patrick sniffles. 

“Do you want a tissue?” William asks. 

Patrick nods, and after being presented with a handful of Kleenex, says, “I’m sorry. I feel terrible.” He peers up at William on the counter. “How are you so good at keeping it together?” 

“I’ll probably cry about it when you leave,” William admits, and if that doesn’t make Patrick feel thoroughly guilty of emotional neglect, he continues, “It’s not you, I’ve had practice.” 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick says again. William gives him a sad smile, and Patrick’s chest twists. 

“It’s okay,” and it’s not, but in being vulnerable, Patrick has exhausted his reserve of reassuring words. He is wordlessly handed another tissue and goes back to drying his face. 

Out of the silence that follows, William offers, “I’m okay with being friends, you know, after a while. I just— I don’t want to lose you completely, if I can help it.” 

Patrick stares at him for what feels like an eternity before he can speak again. “Yes, please,” he says eventually. “I would love that.” He extends open arms, and William drops from the counter to accept the embrace. William balances his chin on the top of Patrick’s head, eyes squeezed shut, and Patrick lets his forehead fall into William’s chest and breathes until his head feels clear again. 

He’s never been so glad to go home alone. Sonkie greets him inside the door, chirping, and Patrick slides the deadbolt into place and refills her bikkies, glad that someone still needs him. Mind reeling, Patrick tells her, “That’s how I feel about cherry Coke. It’s good in the beginning but I never finish it.” She fails to acknowledge him, absorbed in her dinner.

Patrick drops to the floor beside her and thinks, his face in his hands and his back to the wall, that he should eat something, or wash his face, or do anything besides participate in his own misery. He’s anticipating the crash, the tidal wave of exhaustion that’s sure to hit just when the realization that he and William are over sinks in. He could fight it off with alcohol or a bad television sitcom, but when he’s done watching Sonkie crunch her way to the bottom of the bowl, Patrick retreats to his bedroom, strips his shirt and jeans, and crawls into bed. Sleep doesn’t come easily, so Patrick does what Patrick does best, and calls Hayley.

“I’m sorry,” she says minutes later. “Do you want to talk about it or do you want to forget about it?”

Patrick thinks for a moment. “I want to talk about it for a minute.”

“Do you really think you’ll still talk?”

It’s a genuine question and not at all accusatory. Patrick burrows further into his pillow and pulls a blanket over his head. It sticks to his face, already stiflingly hot. “I’m not sure,” Patrick replies, hesitant to put words to it. Speaking it out loud either fates or condemns it, and he’s unsure about the situation anyway— the breakup, the promise of a wedding, a rejected job offer looming behind him, not distant enough. Patrick sighs. “I’m giving it some space for now. We agreed to be friends, and no hard feelings, or what-the-fuck-ever, but I think I need time to think about it. I think.”

Hayley pauses thoughtfully. “Do you feel bad about it?”

It feels like dog breath under the covers. Patrick doesn’t move. “Like garbage warmed over,” he says, sounding congested. She laughs, and Patrick would follow if not for the snot draining from his face, the consequence of moving from vertical to horizontal.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him again. “It was good for you.” He hums. “What are you going to do now?”

In truth, he hasn’t gotten this far. He shrugs and sniffs. “I’m just going to hang out for a while. I’ll focus on work or whatever; maybe I’ll take up yoga.”

The joke flops; she sees right through him. “You don’t have to be funny right now. You can just be sad.”

“I know,” Patrick replies. The bedroom door creaks, and Sonkie pads quietly into the room and jumps onto the bed. Patrick peers out of his cocoon of bedsheets to watch her curl up beside his legs. He says carefully, “Can I tell you something vile?”

“Always.”

Patrick slithers further under his pile of blankets. “If I wasn’t dating William, I would have met up with Pete while I was in Boston— or I would have tried to. I didn’t, because I think something would have happened.” He pauses for a moment. Hayley is quiet. “Is that presumptuous?” 

“Even with Mikey?” 

There’s a beat where Patrick is thinking, and then, “Yeah, even with Mikey.” Another long pause, and Patrick asks, “Am I a bad person?” 

Hayley is quiet on the other end of the phone. “You’re not,” she says finally. 

“How would you know?” 

“Someone I know once got drunk at a house party with a couple of friends,” Hayley starts, “And then their best friend’s girlfriend got a call that her mom was in the hospital. They were the only one with a car, so even though they knew they were drunk and they shouldn’t be driving, they still drove their friend to see her mom— because her mom was sick, and that’s what friends do, and even if it’s the most cautious you’ve ever been, you still easily could have hit someone, or crashed your car, and then more people are hurt, not one. Are they a good or a bad person? 

Patrick is silent for the longest time. He eventually says, “That’s a Pete story.” 

“Yeah,” Hayley says. “Does that answer our question?”

“Hayley?” Patrick asks. He reaches to touch Sonkie’s soft fur and listens to her purr quietly. “I think I’m a bad person.” 

“Patrick,” Hayley asserts. “A bad person wouldn’t care.”

_June, Year V_

June begins cooler than it usually does, in every definition of the word. Mikey invites himself over almost every evening, content to perch on Pete’s kitchen countertops or the back of Pete’s couch, or sit with his legs crossed on Pete’s bathroom counter and watch Pete brush his teeth. Mikey hovers until Pete decides to abandon his responsibilities for the day, makes eyes at Mikey, and invites Mikey to the bedroom with a wolfish grin that would appear mean under any other circumstance. 

It’s a Monday when Mikey brings it up, in the calculated way that makes Pete wonder if anything Mikey does is purely an accident, or rather a methodical game which Mikey inevitably ends up winning. Pete would play if he understood the rules. He doesn’t. 

“I asked if you could come this weekend,” Mikey starts. Poised on the countertop with a can of Pellegrino between his knees, Mikey’s legs are crossed over the other. He picks at the pull-tab on the top of the seltzer. “To come hang out with my family for the afternoon, I mean,” he clarifies. “They said it’s fine, if you want to come.” 

Pete’s attention doesn’t leave the dishes in the sink, and he dismisses Mikey’s invite with, “I can’t, this weekend is Gabe’s wedding.” 

Mikey sizes him up carefully. Pete can feel it, and Mikey leans his shoulders against the kitchen cabinets. His eyes flicker left in thought, otherwise, he looks tired, bored. Pete fixes him with a prompting look, and Mikey asks, “Is Patrick going to be there?” 

“Yes,” Pete answers, and refuses to look up. Mikey throws him a vexing glance, and Pete rolls his eyes. 

“It’s in Newport, right?” 

“Yes.” A lengthy silence follows, and Pete assures Mikey, “You know nothing is going to happen. He has a boyfriend, and more importantly, I have you.” 

The imitation of a smile that Mikey gives him is transparent, teasing eyes and mouth pressed into a thin line. Pete stares at him in near disbelief, annoyed but fractions of an inch from being angry about what Mikey is implying. Mikey lifts an eyebrow and says, “I don’t care what happens as long as I don’t hear about it.” 

Pete throws the dishrag in his hand into the sink and heaves an exasperated sigh. “What does that mean?” 

“I’m telling you that what I don’t know doesn’t hurt.” 

“You would care. You say you wouldn’t care but you would care,” Pete says shortly. Mikey’s eyebrows find his hairline, and Pete laughs. “Why are you giving me shit?” 

Mikey sets his can of seltzer on the counter and shoves himself to the edge. “I’m not giving you shit. I’m saying if you want to get rid of me you’re going to have to try a little harder.” 

“Nothing is going to happen,” Pete says again. “I can promise you that right now.”

“I believe you. Stop being so weird about it and kiss me,” Mikey replies, with the air of a high school boy being accused of infidelity. 

“That’s called cheating,” Pete tells him plainly. He shoves at Mikey’s knees with no animosity. 

“Because you’d never do anything bad.” Mikey wraps his knees around Pete’s waist and his fingers intertwine with Pete’s. At Pete’s apprehensive look, Mikey says gently, reassuring, “Call it what you want, Pete, I know you aren’t going to do anything stupid. Can you please act like you have a penis for once and kiss me?” 

“You’re such a dick,” Pete mumbles fondly, and slides his hands into Mikey’s hair. 

Mikey laughs before he kisses him, once. “Yeah, I know.” 

And so they fuck right there on the kitchen counter, Pete’s jeans dropped to the tiled floor and Mikey’s looped around one bony ankle. Pete kisses the peaks of Mikey’s shoulders, the divot of his collarbones above the collar of his t-shirt, and the knife-sharp edge of Mikey’s jawline without the expectation that the affection will be reciprocated. Mikey doesn’t return the kiss and buries his nose in Pete’s neck when he has the chance, but squeezes Pete’s hands in his and swipes his thumbs over Pete’s knuckles. Pete presses their hands against the edge of the counter and concedes that Mikey’s chilly persona and soft pants do more for him than he’d willingly admit. 

♥

Gabe slurps on the end of a straw in a paper cup of soda and flips through a magazine on the surface of the dresser. The page folds over in his hands and Gabe seems suddenly inspired to speak. He looks over his shoulder at Pete through the mirror in front of him and pulls the straw away from his face. “How are we feeling about an open bar?” he asks. “How are we feeling about the Patrick situation?” 

Pete is reluctant to look in the mirror. He can already feel the dark circles weighted below his eyes, but he drags his gaze from the floor to the mirror. Gabe’s collar is crooked, but otherwise, he looks perfectly put together, bright-faced, and reeling from the extra caffeine in the soda. Pete jumps up to fix his collar and his pocket square. “Can we not talk about that right now?” Pete snaps. “It’s your fucking wedding, now hold still.” 

Gabe shoves his hands away, scowling. “Dude,I can tie my tie by myself. I don’t need the help.” 

“It’s not your tie, it’s your collar.” Gabe holds up a hand and straightens his collar in the mirror. Pete tells him, “Fix your pocket square, too— and you can just admit that you’re nervous.” 

Gabe turns on his heels and neatens his shirt a second time. He gives Pete a stiff look. “Why don’t you admit you’re nervous?” 

“About what?” Pete inquires innocently, and insists again, “This is your wedding, not mine.” Gabe grabs his soda and goes back to pretending to care about the magazine, mumbling under his breath. Pete stacks one ankle over the other and peers at his watch. “You have fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes, my ass,” Gabe gripes. “I want to start now, and party sooner.” 

Hayley squeaks when she sees him on the lawn behind the reception venue. It’s a large outdoor ceremony, chairs set up on the lawn with a view of the ocean in late afternoon, and Patrick accepts her pawing hug with a wide grin and notes just how much taller she is in heels. She’s dressed in all blue, her hair tie to her dress to her shoes, and when she steps back, Patrick brushes a piece of blue lint from the front of his shirt and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “God, there’s so many people here,” Patrick says in disbelief. 

Hayley taps him twice on the chest, an unsubtle gesture that she wants to tell him something private. “You can’t lose me,” she mumbles, almost growling and inches from his ear. “There’s, like, seven people I know here and I don’t want to talk to any of them.” 

Patrick follows her gaze around the grass and counts them off. “Please,” he agrees. “The boy didn’t come?” 

“It’s a long story,” she says shortly, and as she drags him to their chairs by the elbow, “I’ll tell you later.” 

The ceremony, Patrick thinks, is a little bland, as has been every wedding he’s frequented. No guests object to the union, the vows are impersonal, and the kiss is dry. Patrick and Hayley pass the time whispering snide comments to one another about the other guests and stepping on each other’s toes, dodging dirty looks from the relatives of the wedding party. Hayley’s stomach rumbles; Patrick stifles his laugh with an exaggerated cough. 

“I’m so hungry,” she says. “Never in my life.” Patrick coughs again, once, before she pinches him under his coat. 

The reception is a much more enthralling experience. They find their table in a corner near the entrance to an expansive ballroom, and over wine and appetizers, Hayley makes polite conversation with the other guests. She chats through dinner and another glass of wine, and glad to be out of the spotlight, Patrick sits back and fondly watches her entertain the group. 

“It’s a common misconception that he got the inspiration from John Wayne Gacy,” Hayley informs the table. “Because of the clown thing and the kids, but it’s not true.”

“Then what was?” asks a tall man across from her. His long nose and curious eyes remind Patrick of William. “I read the book when I was a kid, scared me a long time.” 

“I don’t know.” Hayley gestures wildly with her fork and moves on, “And the fake teeth made the guy drool— horribly.” 

Patrick makes a face and excuses himself to use the restroom.

Pete makes it a point to speak with nearly every guest at the reception before midnight. Like anything else, there are exceptions; Pete widely avoids Gabe’s narrow-minded aunt and her husband, both of whom smell like sterilizing solution, a couple of already drunk girls of a questionable age, a large man who must be distantly related to Erin, and Patrick. It’s poor taste, he rationalizes, to bring your own melodrama to your best friend’s wedding, so Pete leaves his tie at the table and takes his glass of white wine, the first real drink he’s had in months, to congratulate Gabe’s parents, then schmoozes with other guests in reverse until the faces of strangers blend together. 

Pete reaches the end of his wine glass halfway through and decides he wants another drink. “You’ll have to excuse me,” Pete says to a couple he vaguely remembers from college. “I’m just going to grab something else to drink.” 

“Another?” the man asks crudely. “Everyone here’s god-damn alcoholic, I can tell you that right now.” The man slaps him on the back with an open hand, and Pete forces a laugh. The younger woman next to him looks uncomfortable with the wine glass cupped in her palm, and her eyes carry the disdain of someone who only has to deal with this on a daily basis. 

“I’ll have you know this is my first and only drink,” Pete retorts in a basal attempt to be funny. It doesn’t work on the man, but his partner throws a knowing smirk in Pete’s direction. 

“It was so nice to meet you,” Pete tells her with a forced smile, and makes a quick escape to the bar. She gives him a catty grin and Pete is momentarily concerned she will follow. 

When Patrick returns from the men’s room, Hayley is no longer seated at their round table. Her few belongings are missing with her, and Patrick frowns and looks over the adjacent tables for a blue dress and a contrasting shock of red hair. His search returns nothing, so Patrick asks the table, “Do you know where Hayley went?” 

William’s quasi-doppelganger gives him a look. “Who?” 

“Nevermind,” Patrick says. He apologizes shortly and wanders into the crowd in search of his adopted date.

The bar is bustling, and Pete shoves his way through a gaggle of college-aged men to catch the bartender. He stumbles out with, “Hi,” and takes a moment to catch his breath, to remember how to order a drink. “Can I just have another glass of wine— the same as the table, please.” 

The bartender nods and goes to fill the drink. Pete leans against the bar, his forehead pressed into the heels of his hands, and takes a moment to breathe. The wedding is an elaborate celebration, much bigger than it had seemed whilst tackling invites with Gabe in his kitchen, over pizza and beer, and Pete can count on his ten fingers the number of people he knows well enough to keep a conversation with. The ballroom is stuffy, too, and loud, all guests talking over each other and the sound of utensils and dishes, and Pete closes his eyes and suffocates the urge to undo the buttons on his shirt— it’s too early in the evening, and he’s almost certain the bruise Mikey had worked very hard on is still glaringly obvious. At the very least, he loosens his tie. 

The bartender sets Pete’s glass down on the surface of the bar, and Pete mumbles a thank you and produces a crumpled ten dollar bill from his wallet. The bartender corrects him, “It’s an open bar.” 

“Yes,” Pete replies quickly, and hands the ten over the counter anyway in exchange for his drink. “It’s for not giving me another one later when I ask.” He gets a nod and a tired look in return, but the bartender keeps the money. Pete thanks him again and reluctantly returns to the party, drink in hand.

Patrick ambles through the crowd until he finds Erin. He gives her a short hug, cautious of her dress and flowers, and tells her she looks beautiful. 

Erin’s grin is blinding, clearly rehearsed. “I’m so glad you could come,” she spills, and touches his arm. “I know it was a lot, but I thought maybe if you could see everybody—” She drifts off, hesitant. 

Gabe appears behind her shoulder, like an apparition, and Patrick assures her without hesitation, “It’s nothing.” 

“Hey,” she says suddenly. “I wanted to say hi to Hayley, have you seen her?” 

“No, I was going to ask you the same thing.” Patrick offers, “I’ll tell her to find you if I see her,” and flees before Gabe can catch his eye. 

Patrick finds Brendon next, charming a group of women and one disinterested man. He hedges around the edge of the group and waits for Brendon to finish speaking before he touches Brendon’s elbow. 

“My God,” Brendon says carefully. “I haven’t seen you in forever.” 

“I actually have to run,” Patrick replies with mock disappointment. He wrinkles his nose. Brendon gives him a challenging look, and Patrick is immediately reminded of how every interaction with Brendon brings him one step closer to putting a fist in his teeth. “I’m looking for Hayley, have you seen her?” 

Brendon laughs. “No, I have not.” He asks pointedly, “Have you seen Pete or Gabe?” 

“I’ve seen Gabe,” Patrick snaps, and leaves him without saying where. 

Patrick glances around the room for any leads on Hayley. She’s still missing, but there’s a woman at the table by the door, tall and thin, who had been seated behind them during the ceremony. Patrick approaches her carefully with a tense smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. She gives him a cursory once over, and Patrick clears his throat and asks her, “Have you seen the woman I was sitting with earlier? She has a blue dress and red hair.” 

She smiles and points towards the door. Her thin gold earrings match her frame and they glitter as she crosses one knee over the other. “She said she was going to meet someone outside.” 

“Thanks,” Patrick says. 

“You’re welcome.” 

Patrick returns to the table before he steps outside. He grabs for his drink on the table and takes it outside to the deck behind the ballroom after taking an unlit cigarette from the pack in his coat pocket. A wave of cool, salt-filled air hits his face as he steps onto the deck, and outside, Patrick leans against the painted white banister and scans the lawn for Hayley and her supposed company. He can’t think of who would be with her, and tired, he turns, back to the railing, and lights the cigarette from the tiny plastic Bic in his pocket. It flickers, almost empty, and Patrick shakes it and tries twice again before it lights. 

Pete greets Erin’s parents next, glass of wine in hand. Erin’s mother tells him he looks _very mature_ , and Pete thanks her without asking questions. He reaches for her shoulder, the cufflinks of his shirtsleeves pressed uncomfortably into his wrist, and asks, “Did you help Erin pick out her dress?” 

“Yes,” she says. “I think it looks beautiful.” 

“It does,” Pete confirms. Erin’s father eyes him carefully, and Pete tells them both, “It was so nice to meet you again.” He shakes hands and retrieves his drink from the table. “I’m just going to step outside for a moment.” 

Pete grapples with the buttons on his collar as he makes his way to the door, eventually popping the tightest and undoing the following two buttons of his shirt. He swallows instant relief, slides his coat from his shoulders, and leaves it draped over one arm, breezing through a maze of folding chairs and guests he swears are multiplying to the sliding glass door. The latch pops under his thumb, and Pete shoves the door open and lets out a massive inhale as he steps into the fresh air. 

The night air is heavy and damp, cold in the way that his mother would insist that it would make him sick, and sick is exactly how he feels. It’s not the wedding or Gabe and Erin, but the stuffy gaiety of people he hardly knows mixed with a severe lack of intimacy— with Mikey’s casual refusal to attend and Gabe obviously unavailable, a party with a hundred guests is lonely. The sleeves of his shirt still have a chokehold on his wrists. Pete throws his jacket over the railing and goes to work on his sleeves. They don’t come off easily one-handed, and Pete mutters, “Fuck.” 

Patrick looks up from his cigarette and feels nauseous. Queasy and light-headed like being tossed around on a small boat in sizable waves, and the first thought Patrick has of naming the feeling is just that— seasick. 

Patrick cautiously observes Pete unbutton of the cuffs of his shirt and roll the sleeves over his forearms. The wedding is casual, not the time or place for cufflinks, but as watches Pete slip the two silver circles into his pocket, Patrick feels underdressed. His back is clammy, stuck to his shirt and sweaty as it only does when he’s embarrassing himself in front of a superior, someone he tries desperately to impress. He considers fleeing, turning on one toe and darting down the stairway behind him without an excuse, but Patrick’s lungs flood like they’re filled with salt water, his shoes teeming with sand. He struggles to stack one uncomfortable dress shoe on top of the other and clears his throat. 

Pete unintentionally gapes at him, startled, and Patrick feels woozy, from the alcohol or nicotine or Pete’s exposed arm hair. He gives a half-hearted nod and manages, “Hey.” 


	19. In which Pete has a crisis in a BMW and Patrick violates his NDA.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _drunk on a couch somewhere in the north end feeling like a stranger i crack another beer. the terror creeps in ... i don't apologize, if i don't leave now i will be destroyed i am going to flee as far as i can ... i am going to beat this but first i need to leave.”_ — Jonny Bolduc

_June, Year V.II_

Pete says, “I’m sorry.” He stumbles afterward, choking on something; it could be extra saliva or the confessed apology. Pete clears his throat and gestures toward the sliding glass door with one unbuttoned sleeve. “I didn’t know anyone was out here.” He explains, “It’s just so warm inside.” 

Unsure of the degree of honesty presented (permitted), Patrick replies, “It’s fine.” 

Pete’s ankle twitches, debating whether to step forward, into Patrick’s space, or back, the obvious out. He plants the sole of his shoe perpendicular to the slats of the deck and continues to fidget with the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. Patrick gives no indication of interest, staring blankly at Pete’s shoes; Pete understands the charade, knowing that Patrick’s initial reaction to confrontation is to shut down. He informs Patrick after a long moment, like he’s been dying to tell anyone all night, “Everyone here is a social vampire.” It’s an elementary step in mitigating the stiffness between them. “Emotional bloodsuckers, all of them.” 

Patrick raises one thin eyebrow high enough for the wiry hairs to intersect with the bangs that cover his forehead. He laughs stiffly and lets his mouth fall open, searching for the joke. Pete interrupts him, “And no, Mikey isn’t here.” It sounds like _go fuck yourself,_ especially with the defeated nod from Patrick that accompanies it, and then _suck my dick_ with, “Did you bring William?” 

“We broke up, actually,” Patrick says shortly. He doesn’t care to extrapolate. 

The expanse of time in which Pete says nothing can be measured with infinity. He appears lost for words, lightyears away from a man capable of producing a novel, and who has always had words to offer in opposition to Patrick’s nervous ramblings, though this is reciprocal. Pete looks offended, angry on Patrick’s behalf. “Oh,” Pete says. “That’s really— unfortunate. I’m sorry.” 

Patrick wants to tell him he’s not. The department of Patrick’s brain responsible for every poor decision he’s ever made wants Pete not to be sorry, but secretly, selfishly gleeful, not quite over it like he’s never quite been over Pete. If he digs deep enough, Patrick isn’t sorry, and Pete’s sympathy tastes like pity regardless of the intention. Patrick’s shoulders gather around his ears. “Thanks,” Patrick says. “It’ll be okay.” 

Pete nods. He smooths his hands down the front of his pressed white shirt, one sleeve still halfway to his elbow, tells himself he doesn’t notice Patrick rip his gaze away Pete’s shoes, to the undone buttons of Pete’s collar, and back to the shoes. His hands are hot and sweaty, capable of creating damp streaks down the front of his shirt. He carefully asks, the corner of his mouth threatening a smile, “Do you think I’m overdressed?” 

Patrick takes a long inhale from his cigarette and smirks with only his eyes, self-assured. His judgment of Pete’s ensemble is obvious, taking advantage of the invitation. “Not for being a part of the wedding party,” Patrick reasons. Pete watches Patrick’s mouth, looking apprehensive, and Patrick prompts, “Do you want one?” 

A small smile teeters on the lower half of Pete’s face only, contained by his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. He considers accepting the offer. He doesn’t want a cigarette, now or ever, but he does want to see the curiosity-turned-to-perverse-satisfaction look on Patrick’s face when he says yes. He thinks of the few cigarettes he’s had in his life and wonders with false nostalgia if the taste of nicotine and carcinogens would be any better if Patrick’s mouth had already been on it. 

Patrick touches the box in his pocket, and Pete is quickly reminded of two things: Patrick is offering him a brand new stick, and that Patrick is still undeniably beautiful. He forces himself to stop thinking of Patrick’s mouth or Patrick’s fingers twisted around the little cardboard box and says, despite the heart palpitations and the lightheadedness, “No, I’m all set.” Patrick cracks half of a real smile, and Pete continues, blustering, “You really shouldn’t— it’s terrible for you, you know.” 

“I know.” Patrick dangles the cigarette over the deck railing and prompts cooly, “I’m thinking I should try to quit.” 

He’s being coy, but Pete replies, “You should.” 

“Yeah.” 

Another tepid, gawking pause. “Are you just here for the wedding?” 

“Yes,” Patrick answers immediately, considering the alternatives _—_ that he has plans unrelated to the wedding with the friends they don’t share in spaces they’ve never been together, or that he’s moved back to the east coast and conveniently forgotten to mention it? What is the appropriate answer? Patrick feels his eyebrows fall; Pete hums and nods before he touches the bridge of his nose and crosses his arms over his chest. 

The sliding door opens and Pete startles. Two women stumble onto the deck, halfway through a bout of gossip and cackling.One, with big silver hoop earrings and foundation too light for her face in the dirty white porch lights, throws them both an alcohol-inspired grin, and her friend touches her wrist and parades them both to the stairs at the end of the deck. 

“Well,” Patrick finally says. 

Okay, stop: there does exist an alternate Universe in which this night ends differently. There exists a Universe in which Patrick grabs Pete by the elbow, after sizing him up carefully, and drags him the three hundred feet to the passenger seat of Pete’s car, where they undress from stuffy dress pants and starched shirts (“Do you think I’m overdressed?” Pete asks, and, _Wearing too many clothes, yes._ ) in the short ride from the venue to Gabe’s family house. The nervous, shadowed look Pete wears disappears as the latch of Gabe’s front door gives, and Patrick spends the rest of a Gorgeous June evening forgetting about William, or a hundred guests a short ways away on the beach, and commits himself to secrecy with the knowledge that tomorrow is irrelevant. 

Patrick doesn’t allow himself to consider if Pete would go. Pete has looked uneasy since first hearing Patrick’s voice again. He frowns, and his hands shift on his biceps beneath his shirt. 

“Well,” Pete cautiously replies. “I should go.” He’s silent like he’s waiting for Patrick to flinch and finishes, “It was good to see you. Maybe I’ll see you around.” He doesn’t sound optimistic. 

It’s laughable. Patrick wants to laugh like he’s stepped on the answer to the Cosmic Joke within the span of ten minutes, the same upward jump in understanding like he’d found on mushrooms in Nate’s apartment. He hopes Pete didn’t catch the grin before he’d bitten the inside of his cheek to stifle it. “Yeah,” Patrick agrees, and then asks, “Have you seen Hayley around?” 

Pete’s face twitches and he shakes his head. “I haven’t seen her all night, sorry,” he says, and if Patrick wasn’t well-versed in the body language of Pete and the tell-tale signs, he would believe it was a lie. Pete turns to leave, and Patrick nods and goes back to his cigarette and prepares his good-bye. Pete’s hand meets the handle of the sliding glass door and he hesitates before makes his final statement. “I’m really glad that— I’m really happy that things are going well for you.” 

_Very mature,_ Patrick thinks, and maybe it is. He wishes he was in the mood for Pete’s riddles; he’s tired instead and redistributes his weight from one foot to the other with a matching eye roll behind closed eyelids. Between shaking breaths, perfectly timed, Patrick asks, “What things?” 

Pete gestures vaguely with a limp hand. “I don’t know. Just with the move and stuff— that it’s working out.” 

Patrick’s cigarette bends in his grasp. “Have a good night, Pete.”He doesn’t catch the meaningful, provocative glance Pete throws at him before he slips through the glass door and back into the ballroom without another word. Patrick drapes both arms over the banister, balances his bodyweight where his hips meet the horizontal, and rests his chin on folded forearms. Slowly, he turns his wrist to peer at his watch, and when he’s sure it’s been long enough that Pete has gone back to bouncing between guests, Patrick ventures inside to get another drink. He’s certain he knows of Hayley’s whereabouts. 

Regardless of how much time has passed since he stepped outside, the reception looks the same as it did when he left. He floats through wasted young people and dangerously sober elderly like a phantom guest, his eyes to the patterned carpeting, anonymous and becoming periodically invisible behind chairs with coats and women’s long dresses.

“Can I have a wine and seltzer?” Patrick asks the bartender. “Moscato,” he clarifies, and then as an afterthought, “Please.” He reaches into the pocket of his coat and returns with a crumpled ten-dollar bill. 

The bartender catches him. “Open bar,” he says. 

“Oh.” Patrick refolds the money and is handed the drink almost immediately. “Thanks.” 

The evening is much cooler than it had been during the day, obvious in the increasing number of guests infiltrating the deck and disrupting the film of moisture that has settled to the lawn past dusk. Patrick slips his coat and leaves it at the table before he steps outside again and through the group on the deck, heading for the small strip of sand deemed a beach behind the venue. It opens into the public beach on one side and someone’s beach house on the other, and seems to exist only as a separator of public and private land. He pauses at the top of the stairs and scans the scene below, the party and lawn that fades into the desolate patch of sand and a lonely figure. Patrick squints at the shape and takes a sip of his drink. It must be Hayley.

Patrick scampers down the set of stairs and across the lawn and slows to a meager amble to approach her.

Hayley sits motionless on the sand with her legs stretched out in front of her. The hair piled atop her head is held by a blue scrunchie, the same bright blue as her heels sitting abandoned beside her, and beneath the hair and scrunchie, appearing black in the dark, there is sand stuck to Hayley’s back, fitted to every crevice in the texture of her dress, and pooling in the wrinkles of the skirt. She stares into the oscillating black mass that is the ocean at night and remains statue-still, so much so that Patrick startles when she drops her head to glance at her lap. 

She grabs at something resting between her knees and returns with a wine glass, halfway filled with champagne or white wine. She holds it with a stiffness that makes Patrick uneasy, observing without understanding, so he toes off his shoes on the grass and walks down the sloping sand to invite her back to the reception. 

“Hey,” Patrick says, from right behind her. He expects her to jump, but Hayley turns around to look up at him as if she’d known he was going to find her all along. She gives him an unconvincing smile. “I’ve been looking for you for a while. They’re going to have cake and everything soon, if you want to join us.” 

“Yeah, I’m just going to stay out here,” Hayley says shortly. She continues to stare up at him from the sand, her head tipped back over one shoulder. Patrick nods, and she tells him, “You look really good tonight.” 

Patrick laughs and dusts what might be crumbs or sand from a fold in his coat. “Thank you,” he says awkwardly, and Hayley laughs. “Can I sit down?” 

“You can if you give me a cigarette.” 

Patrick pulls the box from his pocket and extricates his snubbed cigarette from earlier before he extends the box to Hayley. “Take one,” he says, almost demanding. “I owe you.” She makes a grab for the box in his hand and a pocket of sand falls from her dress. Patrick balances the cigarette between his teeth long enough to retrieve a lighter and rub it between his hands before handing it over to Hayley. “It’s almost empty,” he warns, but it lights for Hayley, and she returns the box and lighter silently. 

“Owe me for what?” She takes a long drag from the cigarette and balances it crossed between her fingers. “Don’t tell,” she reminds him gently. “Sit down.” 

Patrick sits cross-legged on the sand beside her, ignoring the sand creeping into his pockets, the hem of his pants, and the back of his waistband. He lights his cigarette with one hand cupped around the lighter and slips the cheap plastic Bic into the pocket of his dress pants. Hayley is quiet, and Patrick wonders if she would rather that he had left her alone on the beach to muse or daydream or whatever else Hayley had been doing by herself. She seems agitated lately, and Patrick thinks this is the stillest he’s seen or heard her in a long time. She interrupts his thoughts and asks, “Are you having fun?” 

Patrick laughs coldly. “I’m trying to. Are you?”

“Not really,” Hayley says, and they descend into a mutual silence once again. Patrick watches her savor her cigarette, ruminating, and can’t escape the restless energy she puts off. He shifts on the sand and leans back on his elbows, and from the disruption of the silence, Hayley side-eyes him and says carefully, “It all just makes me feel so cynical.” 

“Yeah? Tell me.” 

“You’re not going to understand.” Hayley exhales smoke from her nose. It’s a clever attempt at lightening the conversation, a desperate grab at engaging without being vulnerable. They both know it, though Hayley is (always has been) a better actor. She watches the saltwater sink into the sand and wrinkles her nose with a sigh. Patrick stares at his toes and smiles to himself and still refuses to give her the satisfaction. 

“That’s fine,” Patrick says. “I can listen.”

“I don’t know,” she starts. She suffocates her smirk with an eye roll before she continues. “I’ve been thinking I want a wedding but, like, Gabe and Erin? They’re in love, and I’m not.” She side-eyes Patrick again and takes another inhale off her cigarette. “Like, I am, but I’m _not._ I’d only have a wedding because I think one day where everything is about me would be nice.” 

Patrick laughs. “I kind of get it,” he says. “Weddings suck, though. Everyone thinks you’re making a mistake and the company isn’t fun because they’re drunk, and you have to share your cake.” Hayley forces a small smile.

“But,” Hayley insists. “Who cares what they think, because it’s supposed to be about me. I just want someone to buy me something that costs too much money just so I can show it off and I don’t care who buys it. I mean, I _do_ , but no one’s ever going to know who bought it but me and my friends.” Hayley flicks her cigarette with a quick shake of her wrist and watches it burn out. “Erin’s proposal was cute; I just want to make a scene.” 

Patrick snorts. “You could give him an ultimatum. It’s kind of an asshole move, though.” 

“Yeah,” Hayley agrees again, and her enthusiasm fades like the hot end of her cigarette. “I won’t, though, because I love him, but— like, not just that I love someone but that I’m in love. I want to be  in _love_ love.” Hayley crosses a bare ankle over her knee and stares admiringly at Patrick’s sand-ridden pants and lit cigarette before she grins. “Like, fuck, I just want something to happen, you know? Nothing fun ever happens.”

Patrick thinks Hayley may have had one too many glasses of wine, or otherwise, he hasn’t had enough, because her words make something close to some sense, but just off enough that he has to squint to see it. Maybe, he thinks, there’s a sliver of truth between the dramatics, much like _The Happening_ or _Jurassic Park_ or any Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel, or she’s right on all accounts— that loving is more fun with the histrionics and a minute dose of hysterics and the money spent. Beyond the secrets and the intimacy and sexual compatibility, there’s fun, too big of a three-letter word for Patrick’s liking. 

Patrick sniffs and quickly stuffs the cigarette between his teeth. He would wipe the sand off his face with his shirtsleeves if they weren’t also covered in sand, but there’s sand in every crevice of his clothing, and Patrick glances up at the sky, still too bright from the light pollution and the ocean to see any stars. “He’s not fun enough for you?” Patrick asks. “I’m not fun enough for you?” 

“Guess not,” she says plainly. She takes a long drag off her cigarette, realizes it’s no longer burning, and stares at her feet, contemplative and warm like the uncountable seconds she had before she kissed him on the sidewalk months ago, waiting for the cab and freezing. “Was William fun?”

Patrick considers the question, frowning. “Not really. I mean, yes, but not really— but he’s sweet and patient and all of that.” 

“Yeah,” she agrees, and so begins another pregnant silence between them. Hayley stares at the sand for a long time. She says carefully, “I think my life is falling apart.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick answers. “Mine, too.”

Hayley exhales a laugh, almost a snort. She asks, “Did you see Pete?” 

“I’m so fucking sick of you.” 

Hayley’s laugh sounds like confetti. “Well, did you?” 

Patrick nods with an arched eyebrow and laughs, staring at his lap. “You could say that.” 

“You’re so weird,” Hayley notes. She smiles with one half of her face and finishes, “And you have the introspection abilities of a grape.” 

“I do not,” Patrick protests. 

“Do, too,” she teases, and realizing he isn’t as amused as she’d hoped, “I’m fucking with you.” 

“I’m getting better,” Patrick insists, and sitting on the sand, stuck to the hem of his pants and the soles of his feet, any energy devoted to speaking to anyone but her evaporates. He watches Hayley drag her fingers through the sand and after a moment of silence, suggests, “We should get out of here. We can get a drink somewhere else.” 

Hayley looks at him funny. “Are you going to say goodbye?” 

Patrick thinks of asking so many guests if they’d seen Hayley and the interaction with Pete on the deck. He looks around the empty beach, as if looking for anyone else to talk to, but it’s devoid of anyone worth speaking to, or anyone at all. “No,” he tells Hayley thoughtfully. “Not one person at this party cares about me but you. We should just go. Not one person here is going to come looking for us. Fuck ‘em.” 

She takes a moment to compose herself, clears her throat, and says, voice deep, “They’re a rotten crowd, you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together!” 

His eyes closed, Patrick shakes his head, withholding a grin. “Terrible Tobey Maguire impression. Let’s get out of here.” Hayley raises an eyebrow. “Not like that. I have sand in my underwear.” 

“How unsexy of you,” she replies drily, but she brushes the sand from her hands and consequently her ankles. Patrick snuffs his cigarette and slips it back into the box before he stands and extends a hand to Hayley. She grabs it; Patrick pulls her to her feet with enthusiasm. She picks her heels from the sand carefully and tells him, trailing behind him returning to the venue, gingerly stepping over piles of seaweed and shells and the occasional protruding rock, “It’s not true, you know, that no one at this party cares about you but me. It’s kind of hard to show how much I care about—” She trips, catches herself, and breathes, “Fuck— show that you care about someone when they live so fucking far away.” 

It’s gotten dark enough to excuse being overly careful, and Patrick calls back to her, “Let’s go! I want to leave before anyone catches me doing it!”

Hayley sprints through the softest of the sand to the grass. Patrick gives her the _hurry up_ look, and Hayley loops her arm through Patrick’s elbow to tug on her heels. “Maybe,” she says, struggling with the buckle one-handed. “If you don’t want anyone to catch you leaving, you should be quieter about it."

“I still want them to know I’m leaving,” he assures her. His white teeth flash in the dark. 

Hayley gives a grunt and finally succeeds in buckling her heels around her ankles. “Funny how it always works like that,” she says, face twisted, and they leave the wedding around the side of the venue to avoid saying their goodbyes, elbows interlocked.

♥

Pete leaves the wedding shortly after midnight, dead sober and blood boiling under his pressed white shirt. He hugs Erin and tells her she looks devastatingly beautiful with feigned conviction one last time before he leaves, and pretends he doesn’t see Gabe duck out of a conversation across the room as he slips out of a side door to the coat check. He’s giving the attendant the ticket from the bottom of his pocket in exchange for his jacket and wallet when Gabe taps his shoulder. 

Pete slides a five-dollar bill across the counter to the attendant at the coat check and straightens to face Gabe. “Hey,” he says, somewhere between plaintive and unenthusiastic. “I’m going to head out, I think. I hope I’m not ruining the fun.” 

“Did something happen?” Pete doesn’t answer, keeps his eyes on his wallet, and shakes his head. Gabe answers his obvious question. “It’s okay if you go.” Pete shoves his wallet back into his pocket with a concealed eye roll, and Gabe tries, “Thanks for coming.” 

“I know,” Pete replies. “I want to stay.” It sounds protesting, whiny even. 

Gabe nods, understanding, and Pete sighs, quiet as several guests walk down the long hallway from the valet service to the ballroom. It’s two of Erin’s friends, tipsy and audibly gossiping, with Brendon in tow. One of them waves, and Pete returns a tight smile, which Brendon takes as an invitation for conversation. Pete wants to shake him until he goes limp, like a small animal. 

Brendon looks between them, eyes glittering. Gabe stuffs his hands in the pockets of his pants, and Brendon gestures to Pete and quips, “I told you, if you’d brought Mikey, he would have left you alone.” 

Pete’s ribs tighten about his lungs, squeezing the lump in his throat upwards and sinking his stomach. He doesn’t correct Brendon, clarify that he’d been the one to approach Patrick outside, and that Mikey hadn’t wanted to come. It feels like an admittance of failure; Pete squeezes his eyes closed and opens them to Gabe squinting at him. An exchange of information occurs between them with only a meaningful glance.

“Yeah,” Pete says. “Well—”

“You should have brought Mikey,” Brendon oozes. “It would have fun!” 

“Fuck off, Brendon,” Gabe snaps, and Brendon gives Pete a faux casual grin before he spins on his toe and breezes back into the reception. The door closes behind him with a thud. 

Pete says quietly, “I’m going to stay at Mikey’s tonight.” 

“Sure, and text me, you know, if you want to do something later in the week.” Gabe’s hug feels like casual strangulation, but Pete gives him an awkward pat between the shoulder blades. Gabe insists, “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Pete loves Gabe. Pete nods and assures him, “Yeah, I’m just tired and everyone’s drunk, and— I’ll let you know, call or whatever.” 

Gabe leaves him with a light bump on the bicep and some reassurance, and as soon as the door to the ballroom closes behind him, bumping Gabe’s heel as it fits back to the doorframe, Pete flees. He keeps his eyes to the carpet and crosses his fingers, shoved inside his pockets, praying that no one touches his shoulder.

Walking towards the exit, Pete catches a glimpse of himself in the long hallway mirror and mumbles to himself while shoving his arms through the sleeves of his sport coat, “Jesus fuck.” He looks tired, ghastly even, with dark circles and paler than usual; the yellow lights of the hall cast a sickly glow instead of creating a calming ambiance. He bitterly requests from the valet guarding the door, “Can I just have my keys?” The valet looks as if he wants to ask Pete if he’s been drinking. “I can walk,” he snaps, unsure if he’s assuring the valet that he’s sober or that he can walk through the parking lot alone. 

“Of course,” the valet replies stiffly, and produces the keys with an obvious reluctance.

From the hallway to the parking lot, Pete tosses his keys from one hand to the other and hopes he becomes invisible in the flat black expanse of the parking lot. Invisible like his car is, and Pete realizes quickly that the benefit of having a valet service is that they know where the car is parked. He presses the button on the key fob and listens for the beep, waits for the flash of the hazard lights. Nothing happens. He walks another hundred feet into the void and tries again. 

Again nothing happens, and “Shit,”Pete whispers, with enthusiasm, because all he has the stamina for is a half-hour alone with Mikey, with plans to pass out immediately after into a thoughtless, dreamless sleep. 

Pete touches the keys into the underside of his chin and presses the button again. _It turns your head into an antenna—probably gives you cancer, but you find your car more quickly._ Somewhere in the Twilight Zone that is the parking lot, the car beeps. Pete glances around, walks backwards, and hits the button a third time. _You don’t live as long, but you get things done faster, so— it all evens out in the end._ A dim flash of white-gold from the lights of the car, and the wave of relief that washes over him is palpable. Crossing the parking lot takes an eternity, and Pete sinks into the leather seats of the Beamer and sinks his fingers into the soft spots in his eyelids above the spherical curve of his eyes, equally insistent on dulling the roaring headache nestled against the back of his skull and quelling the overflow of tears threatening to spill from the corners of dark eyes. It’s fruitless; Pete is crying before he can stop himself, awkward, nervous tears that scald the planes of his nose one by one and come to collect in the corners of his mouth. He wipes them away with his thumb and tells himself to _keep it together, for fuck’s sake,_ the humbling experience of being embarrassed in front of oneself. 

How many things that feel good are bad for you? Unconditionally, inarguably bad for you— take years off your life and provide you with a direct transit ticket to a terminal illness or a lifetime of prescription cocktails, fuck over your career and your relationships and your stable sense of self, or rip away years of personal or professional potential to replace it with years dedicated to substances, material goods, a high that never sticks around. Like pornography or a lack of discipline when it comes to fast food or— 

“That’s so bad for you,” Pete says, at any moment he sees Patrick with a cigarette balanced between his fingers— on the sidewalk, on the balcony behind Pete’s apartment, in Patrick’s bed on occasion when Patrick is being obstinate and Pete is being a pushover. 

Patrick replies, “You should have been around when I was sixteen, then. You know, I’m going to die in the next fifty years anyway.” He fits the end of the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and informs Pete with glossy eyes, “And I was doing a good— an okay job of quitting, you know, before all of this.” He gestures between them shortly, teasing, and Pete laughs. 

_Before all of this,_ the subtle implication that it’s Pete that keeps him hooked on red and white paper boxes folded into cellophane, not the grating office job that forces him to work extra hours and pays nothing, or a sequence of failed relationships, or Patrick’s obsession with being a failed adult. Pete knows what he really means, kisses him, and pretends it doesn’t still hurt just the right way. 

It feels like ages ago. Pete holds the keys between his thumb and index finger, and when the black plastic melts into his fingers due to sensory fatigue, over seconds or minutes or hours, he slowly turns the keys in the ignition and closes his eyes against the vivacity of the dashboard lights. He wonders briefly if he’s drunk off the little alcohol he’s had throughout the evening, with the emotional instability and the headache throbbing against the lights behind the steering wheel. 

How many things that feel good are bad for you? _Drinking,_ a nervous Pete thinks to himself, every time he downs shots in front of a fanatical audience or accepts the invitation for a third glass of wine only because it’s been offered. _Listening to music too loudly,_ he thinks when one ear makes a high-frequency noise, every time seemingly worse than the one before. _Speeding,_ his mind helpfully supplies on the occasion he has to punch the accelerator to get under a traffic light before it turns red, the anxiety only exacerbated after an unlucky speeding ticket. 

If one is comfortable at fifteen over the speed limit, and the highways are free of traffic, the easy drive from Newport back to Boston can be done in an hour. There are few cars in the early hours of the morning, at least until he reaches Quincy, and then Pete sits in the rote Boston traffic from highway 93 to Mikey’s Back Bay apartment complex. He punches the button on the stereo system and fumbles with the buttons until the radio lands on the familiar voice of the WEEI sports announcer— baseball, Pete confirms with a sense of relief, meaning that Mikey is inevitably home, parked in front of the television, and checked out from the rest of the world, and it is exactly how Pete wants him. 

_I put the radio on, hold you tight in my mind,_

_Isn't strange that you're not here with me?_

_—_ Terrance Loves You

Pete parks the car on the street (parallel, poorly) and staggers into Mikey’s apartment door like he’s had much more to drink than his one glass of wine, the second left on a stranger’s table during his mad dash to the bathroom after parting ways with Patrick. 

“Hey,” Mikey says from the couch. He mutes the familiar sound of baseball on the television and drops his head back over the arm of the couch. His hair flops backwards and he looks over Pete’s unbuttoned shirt and matching disheveled hair in reverse. 

“Um,” Pete starts. His knees threaten to buckle from the needlessly strenuous walk up the apartment stairs after sitting in the car for too long. “It was good.” 

“You look nice,” Mikey says to the television. 

“My God, Mikey,” Pete breathes. He trips over himself toeing off his shoes just inside Mikey’s door and stumbles through the doorframe to the living room. “You don’t have to _lie_ about it.” 

“Who said I was lying?” Pete stands over him and presses his face to Mikey’s hair, and Mikey asks, eyes still glued to the television, “Did you listen to this? It was on AM radio.”

Pete audibly inhales the sharp scent of Mikey’s cheap hair conditioner. “AM radio?” he mumbles against Mikey’s skull. “You know I don’t listen to that.” Mikey loops an arm around the back of Pete’s neck, and Pete takes in Mikey’s bare legs and worn t-shirt, fading screen-printing that reads _The Purple Pig_ and feels desperately homesick. 

Mikey looks him over again, this time right side up, and meets Pete’s eyes with an honest intensity. He says, “I wasn’t being sarcastic when I said you looked good.” Pete rolls his eyes behind closed eyelids and knows Mikey can see through it. “Want me to meet you in the bedroom now or after you shower?” 

“Now,” Pete confirms. “Please. I’m going to take out my contacts.”

Mikey goes back to watching the television. “Yeah, okay. Give me five minutes.” 

Mikey finds him in the bedroom clad in only grey boxer briefs that stretch tight across the protrusions of his hips and the curve of his ass. The perfectly fitted underwear had been inspired, but the rest of his clothes sit folded on the floor next to Mikey’s bed. Pete carefully lays his watch on top of thoughtfully folded dress pants, to accentuate a formal crease, and waits for Mikey to leap over the foot of the bed and tackle him into his diminutive collection of throw pillows. 

Mikey crawls into bed gently instead. He pushes Pete onto his back with a soft hand on his chest and cups the other over Pete’s partial erection. Mikey breathes rhythmically, robotic even, bites at Pete’s earlobe to feel Pete’s cock twitch under his hand, and grinds himself against the soft fabric tented across Pete’s hips. The long exhale disturbs the hairs cut short around Pete’s ear. Mikey breathes, “I know you thought about it.” 

Pete’s hands slip down the flats of Mikey’s shoulder blades under a velvety, skin-thin t-shirt, down Mikey’s side body, and to the waistband of his own briefs. Mikey can deal with his own. “You get off on the fact I can’t have him,” Pete deadpans.

Mikey laughs. “A little bit.” He ducks his head to drag his mouth over the clean lines of Pete’s neck, twisting into broad shoulders and decorated collarbones. 

Pete drags his cock up the length of Mikey’s thigh and catechizes, “Remind me again why I like you?” 

The noise Mikey makes sounds like he’s been punched in the stomach. “God,” he says, introspecting. “I have no fucking idea.” 

How many things that feel good are bad for you? 

♥

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Patrick tells her at the end of the night, eyes fixated on Hayley over the wooden table of a high-end restaurant bordering a seawall and adjacent boat harbor. It’s fully dark now. A distorted pattern of egg-shaped lights from the dock and boats reflect on the water— water not perfectly still; it undulates against the seawall and Patrick peers over the stone wall and notes the water lapping at the rocks, the undersides of fishing boats and small yachts, and the seawall. He spins the end of his third wine spritzer of the night, mostly water, in his fingertips and under Hayley’s confused stare, he clarifies, “You know, when you said I had the introspection abilities of a grape?” 

She persists, “Have.” 

Patrick ignores her. “Okay, well, I’ve thought about it, uh, for a while, but— I’ve got something to say.” 

She mirrors him, spinning her plastic bottle of Polar seltzer in her hands and knowing that it will fizz over later. “Yeah?” she says. “Can I hear it?” 

“Yes.” There is a pause in which Patrick finishes the drink at the bottom of his glass in preparation for his announcement, and then he begins, “I’ve figured out what I want— or, I’ve figured out what I really don’t want.” Hayley’s upper lip curls, and Patrick insists, “It’s a start.” 

Hayley confirms, “A good start.” 

“Okay, I want everyone to think I’m a real adult, even if— that’s not true, but I don’t want it to be so obvious, and I want to make real money so I can rent a nice loft, and I’ve proven I can handle a stable relationship twice, so that’s pretty good— even if it’s like I get it and all I can think about is  how I had more fun smoking with my ex-boyfriend than I ever did drinking wine with people I pretended to like— am pretending to like. It’d be cool to have both, but I kind of think I want to be, like, desperately in love, you know?” Patrick pauses briefly and laughs; it descends into a hiccup. “Like, I liked William ‘cause everything is so easy, but—”

Hayley’s eyes, caked around the edges with wearing makeup, glitter under the influence of the same lights that reflect off the water. She perches on the edge of her chair, ankles crossed under the table, and draws him in with a suggestive glance, like she impatiently awaits a secret. She asks, “But what?” 

“I don’t know. It’s just what you said, that it should be fun. Like, watching John Malkovich while you’re toasted is fun— so’s mushrooms if you do it right, I guess, so’s fucking on the beach.” He pokes at the ice in the bottom of his glass and is comforted in knowing that the dim light hides his reddening face. It’s enough heartfelt confessions for the rest of the year. “This is embarrassing, I feel like a child.” 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Y’can’t be in love with your friends.” 

“I love you to death.” 

“Yeah,” she says again, “But you’re not in love with me.”

“You can fall in love with your friends.” 

“Sure, but can you really ever be friends if you’re in love?” Patrick hums, and Hayley leans further over the table. She stacks her hands on top of her seltzer and rests her chin on top of her knuckles, watching Patrick stares between the table and his empty wine glass. Her eyes fall closed; she opens them again and asks because she’s nosy, “What’d you say to Pete?” 

“Not much. That I broke up with William.” Hayley stifles a laugh and wrinkles her nose, and Patrick continues quickly, “That’s so annoying. That’s so annoying that I said that.” 

Hayley grabs at the complimentary mix of pretzels and nuts on the table and asks around a mouthful of them, “Why’d you tell him that?” 

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Because he asked if he was there— and he told me he and Mikey are still together, too.” 

“Still?” Hayley asks, surprised, as if she had genuinely expected Pete and Mikey’s relationship to last no more than a week, like the fading remnants of a college house party. 

“I guess,” Patrick admits, too tired to show any animosity. “He told me I should quit smoking cigarettes, too.” Patrick shoves his hand into his coat pocket and lets his fingers close around the empty lighter. He can feel that it’s empty without trying to light it, the difference that less than five milliliters of lighter fluid makes. 

She drones, “Wow, it sounds like you guys are back to normal.” 

“I don’t know,” Patrick says. He flips the lighter over within his pocket with a thoughtfully aimed flick of his thumb. “Maybe I should.”

She doesn’t reply. Hayley twists the cap off her bottle of seltzer. It bubbles and spills over the top, over her hands, and pools on the table, seeping into and soaking dry napkins. “Shit,” she says. “Fuck this entire night.” 

_July_

Query replies for the book drop into Pete’s inbox, one after the other, throughout the summer, all apologetic rejections from well-meaning agents. They read like a rehearsed break-up, full of semantics bordering on _it’s not you, it’s me_ , and excuses about time and their ability to give the manuscript the time it deserves, and like a calculated, classless break-up, Pete doesn’t buy any of the lines. He replies to them all with a cursory thank you and sends the file off to someone hopefully more appreciative of his literary genius.

That is, until one inquiry returns an email that says, in no shorter terms, that the prose reads like, “a drug-induced personal fantasy disguised under the pretense of circuitous synchronicities,” and it sounds like Mikey’s _it’s about you, it just didn’t happen._ Pete sets his jaw and sends a spite-fueled reply about having the courtesy to give an honest critique, hoping that at some point in his nervous ranting, he managed to thank the agent for their time.

Like a real synchronicity, Pete’s phone buzzes incessantly on the side table, and Pete flips it over to answer Mikey’s incoming call.

“Somebody broke the washing machine for the building,” Mikey complains. “It wasn’t me. Can I come do laundry at your place?”

Pete exchanges a glance with Gabe’s dog, with whom Pete has been entrusted for the duration of Gabe’s honeymoon. He replies, “That sounds suspiciously like it was you that broke the washing machine.”

“Swear I didn’t,” Mikey retorts, in the tone that Pete’s unpleasant aunt would say _sounds like making a deal with the Devil._ He grunts, hoisting what is probably his laundry off of the floor. “Can I please use your washer?”

Pete tells him he can use the washer for one load of laundry, because it’s already late in the day and he has to be up early to meet a client the next morning. He tells Mikey that he has to watch the dog, and Mikey seems to perk up at this. “Cool,” Mikey says, in reference to the dog. “I’ll see you soon.”

Pete hangs up the phone and goes back to answering stiff emails.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Pete says later, after Mikey’s laundry is in the washer and Pete has settled back into staring at his computer. “About how the book was too personal, and I’m trying something else.”

Mikey maneuvers around the dog sprawled across the kitchen floor, trying to escape the heat, and peers over Pete’s shoulder. He frowns. “I didn’t mean that you should scrap it.”

“I’m not scrapping it. I’m starting something else and letting the other one sit for a while.”

“You haven’t gotten a response from anyone?” Mikey asks.

“I have,” Pete emphasizes. “It’s just that they’re all rejections. I’ve been hoarding them in a separate folder; I’m thinking I’ll make a quilt or something out of them later.” Mikey gives him the look, to which Pete seems oblivious. Pete takes a deep breath, squints at his computer screen, and reads,“Thank you for sharing your work with me; however, though I enjoyed reading and there is much I admire about this piece, I do not feel that it is the right fit for me. I recommend you continue to explore other options for publishing and want to wish you the best with your future endeavors.

“Want to hear another?” Pete asks. “I was intrigued by this concept and—”

“Alright,” Mikey snaps. “I get it. Are you feeling discouraged?”

Pete stiffens to vertical, unable to tell if Mikey is having a difficult time asking a genuine question, or if he’s being mocked. “No,” he replies shortly. “Well— no, but it’s a lot of being told no, I guess. Read this one.” He presents Mikey with the worst of his rejections, hiding the reply, and after Mikey reads it over, Pete asks, “Well?”

Mikey takes a deep breath and the soft skin below his jaw rises and falls as he swallows. Pete tries not to look at it; for the first time, it’s unappealing. “I think they’re wrong about the drugs,” Mikey offers.

“But the rest is fair game?”

Mikey hesitates. “I told you, I like the book, it’s just— it’s not subtle.” Pete frowns, and Mikey tells him, “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“What’s not subtle?”

Mikey answers the question indirectly. “Is it so hard to believe I don’t want to talk about your ex right now? I said I don’t care as long as I don’t have to hear about it.”

“Then don’t bring it up,” Pete snaps, and spits before he can stop himself, “He’s not my ex.”

“Okay.” Mikey laughs coldly. “For all intensive purposes—”

Pete corrects, “Intents and purposes.” He pauses, takes in Mikey’s scoff and provocative hand gesture, and discloses, “And nothing happened at Gabe’s wedding— like I told you, nothing was going to happen anyways.”

“For all intents and purposes—” Mikey draws out each word and spits out the rest. “He’s your fucking ex, Pete.”

“You think about this more than I do,” Pete tells Mikey, which, could not be further from the truth, because if he’s being honest, he thinks about it constantly ever since the wedding. Obsesses, picking at his cuticles over his steering wheel at stopped traffic lights, pouring over the new lines in his face in the bathroom mirror as he brushes his teeth, counting off his footsteps in the hallway between the elevator and his office, itchy when Mikey’s fingers brush his hair in the opposite of the direction it grows.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Mikey declares, and Pete bites his tongue to avoid saying anything he can’t take back, or disclosing just how much he’s dying to talk about his stilted conversation with Patrick at the wedding, how Brendon had caught him in a lie by omission, anything about Patrick, Patrick-related. When is Gabe back from his honeymoon?

“Fine,” Pete agrees instead. He pointedly goes back to his inbox.

“I would go home right now,” Mikey announces. He crosses his arms and ankles simultaneously and snaps his gum against the roof of his mouth. His eyes flicker noticeably between the hall bathroom, towards the washing machine, and the front door, skipping over Pete in the middle.

Pete finishes, “But you’re waiting on your laundry, yeah.”

♥

Everything is— different when Patrick gets back to Italy. He misses the false sense of domestic bliss with a deep ferocity, the security of existing on William’s couch, in the same room as William, and completely ignoring each other. He is inclined to think briefly, that William must feel the same way, and then tells himself with a shake of his head that he’s speculating, that it’s unfair to assume anything without substantial evidence. His phone vibrates less, and almost never hard enough to jump across the surface of his bedside table with an incoming call. When it does, it’s Hayley, or else it’s Nate, and Patrick loves them both, but not in the same method that he loves a solid body next to him in bed. 

Gabe calls to check in after seeing each other fleetingly at the wedding. He doesn’t mention that Patrick had simply disappeared with Hayley instead of saying goodbye, or that he hadn’t seen Erin at all, or anything about Pete, and Patrick chooses not to ask. Patrick thinks in the aftermath of the phone call that a month devoted to self-actualization is necessary, and only hopes it doesn’t get him into trouble. 

Patrick wakes up much before his alarm the second Monday after the wedding. It’s almost light outside, the sky the grey-purple color of the early morning that he rarely witnesses as a consequence of never grasping consciousness before eight in the morning. 

He writes over his usual coffee and a single piece of toast until he needs to leave for work. He writes out a list of pros and cons in the same notebook that he takes to shows, a clean line down the center of the page and sides labeled _Rome_ and _Boston,_ left and right respectively _._ Patrick chews on the end of his pen and scratches on the left side; 

_PROS_

_Live here already_

_Get to work with Nate_

_New music_

_Reliable job_

_ CONS _

_Office job_

He looks it over and pulls his hand across the page to the right.

_PROS_

_Hayley_

_My own company_

_Co-ops_

_Beer is better_

_ CONS _

_ Have to move _

Looking over the paper, Patrick swipes crumbs from each list and considers both, and then carefully on the right, he writes hard enough that the tip of his pen bends against the paper, _Pete_ in both columns. He tucks the pen into the spine of the notebook, stuffs the last bite of toast into his cheek, and brushes the crumbs from his fingers to the floor all without taking his eyes from the lists. Neither list provides an immediate answer or reaches out to grab him, wind strong fingers around his forearm and pull him to either side. The only limitation is that in only one place is that an option at all. 

“God-damn it,” Patrick says to himself through a mouthful of toast, and goes to catch the bus.

Later in the morning, Victoria drops several pages of glossy prints on his desk, ripped out of the preliminary copy of this month’s issue of the magazine. The pages are folded in half and dented at the corners, and Patrick experiences a flash of paternal anger. “It’s from last week. It needs a rewrite.” She shuffles through the folders in her arms, the rest of the dismantled magazine issue. “Not a full one, just some— stuff. I believe the deadline is Tuesday.”

“That’s tomorrow,” Patrick squeaks. 

She locates something in her folder, looks it over, and departs with a bounding dark ponytail. “Just make sure it’s in my inbox by Wednesday morning,” she calls over her right shoulder. 

Immediately after lunch, a bleached-blonde woman he’s spoken with once before asks as he’s printing off copies of his proposal and hoping not to be caught, “Can you get William to look this over for me?” She holds a wad of chewing gum under her tongue and produces a stack of printed spreadsheets. 

“You can email him,” Patrick offers politely, with the air of passionate distaste. He leans against the printer defensively and adds a cold smile for emphasis, no teeth. 

“You forgot to charge your hours on Monday and Tuesday last week,” William’s replacement tells him while Patrick is slipping the papers printed off in secret into his backpack to leave for the evening. Patrick turns red under his accusing gaze. The replacement’s glasses slide down the bridge of his nose. 

“Yeah,” Patrick stutters, crouched over his backpack. “I wasn’t in the office.” 

William’s replacement seems displeased, but heaves a sigh and wanders off with no further questions, and the rest of the week passes in a similar manner, much to the detriment of Patrick’s good spirits. 

♥

Hot weather looms ahead in June but his apartment, the office, and the city all feel dry and cold, and it should still be colder. He looks for familiarity in the faces of complete strangers on the way to meet Nate at the latest Friday show, and finds some comfort in knowing that Hayley’s tiny pointed nose, Pete’s thick hair chopped short, and William’s high cheekbones all exist elsewhere. They are not replacements but simply substitutes, to keep in his pockets and take out to admire whenever the need for friendship finds him. He’ll collect them until he can afford the real thing. 

The show is good. It’s great, actually, considering how young the kids on stage are and how little every other attendee of the pub is paying attention. It could be excellent if Patrick could force himself to pay attention, instead of obsessing over the old proposal and his secret copies in situ on his makeshift half-sized coffee table. 

“Are you okay?” Nate asks eventually, finally catching onto Patrick’s indifference toward the evening’s musical act, and that it isn’t a ploy to appear cool, but a genuine inability to get excited over it. 

“Yeah,” Patrick replies. “I’m fine.” Nate nods and goes back to the show and his drink. Patrick blurts out, “William and I broke up.” 

Nate considers it for a moment and shrugs. “I kind of figured. You haven’t been trying to blow me off for a show.” 

“Oh,” Patrick says. Had he been unloading his responsibilities on Nate to spend more time with William? If he had, he hadn’t realized, and feels guilty now. “Sorry.” The subsequent silence between them is one of Patrick’s more awkward moments. He shifts on the barstool, his back to the bar, and waits for Nate to reply with the teeth in the back of his mouth pressed into his tongue. Nate is quiet, studying his drink, and Patrick finishes, “For blowing you off for shows, I mean.” 

“It’s fine,” Nate says, dismissive. “I can do the write-up this week if you want. You can do it next week.” 

“Yeah. Thanks,” and without an invitation, Patrick touches his pockets to make sure he still carries his phone and wallet and slips out the door of the pub. For a moment, he forgets to care what Nate thinks of him, catches the first bus he can find heading in the direction of his apartment, and goes home to pour over his pros and cons list from earlier in the week and drink alone.

Sitting cross-legged against the arm of his couch, Patrick jumps when his phone buzzes on the coffee table. Patrick peers at his phone over the top of his laptop, frowning. The display lights up, proudly presenting a photo taken of himself and William at the beach in Foce Verde. Tipsy on red wine, they’d day-drank until poor judgment crept under Patrick’s fingernails, but instead of doing something deplorable, they’d ridden out the high riding each other and waiting for dinner. It had been the easy type of drunken intimacy where Patrick feels sexy. 

Patrick raises one eyebrow and slams his laptop closed. It knocks the wind out of him, and after swiping madly to both answer the phone and get rid of the picture, Patrick holds the phone to his ear and asks smally, “Hello?” 

“Hey,” William exhales, sounding light-headed. “Are you busy right now? I’m really sorry to call.”

It’s good to hear William’s voice, a thought Patrick chooses not to ruminate on. He sets his laptop on the coffee table cautiously and shifts on the couch. “I’m just, um, finishing work and having a glass of wine.” He raises the other eyebrow, his face now symmetrical. “Why?” 

“I need a favor. Do you think you could—?” 

Patrick makes a face and rubs at his eyebrow as if predicting an oncoming headache. He interrupts William. “What kind of favor?”

“A work-related favor. I need some copies of something in my old work email but I can’t get on anymore. They’re in the office Cloud. Can you get them for me?” Patrick frowns to himself, and William continues, “I’ll send you the addresses, and you’ll have to print them. I know it’s really annoying, but I need it for Monday, and—” 

“You want me to break into the office tonight to double-cross Victoria for you?” 

“I wish I could say no?” William offers. “You don’t have to.” 

“No,” Patrick says, thinking. “I’ll do it. Text me what you need.”

William thanks him profusely. It’s mildly irritating, like he’s trying to make up for something, and Patrick pours the rest of his now-warm glass of wine down the sink, fetches his backpack, and makes a break for his mission. The office is deserted late Friday night, and Patrick punches in the door code on the keypad and carefully opens the door, afraid of setting off an alarm or that Victoria will step out of the shadows to interrogate him, but the door gives with a click and Patrick slips into the stairwell unnoticed. 

Patrick prints the requested files from his desktop and stashes them in his backpack, and then, after careful consideration, steps to Victoria’s office and tries the door. It’s unlocked. 

Victoria has made no attempt to neaten her office before leaving for the weekend. Her desk is still teeming with manila folders and prints, locked file cabinets and a bookshelf pushed against the opposite wall, and a recycling bin overflowing with papers scrawled over with red pen, the occasional highlighter, all barely visible in the dark. Patrick reaches inside the door and flips the light switch. 

He tries to think like Victoria, knowing Victoria’s nonsensical scheduling methods and complete disregard for organizing. Where, in her endless sea of papers, colored sticky notes, and dirty coffee mugs, would she keep one completed, perfectly organized, and rejected start-up proposal? It seems impossible, but Patrick crosses his fingers and reaches for the closest file cabinet. 

“Christ,” Patrick says. The metal boxes are filled with every printed edition of the magazine; Patrick pulls one out at random and reads, _David Bowie Ambivalent About “Reality”: Losing Another Influence to Soul-Searching._ He makes a face and flips to the article before reminding himself he shouldn’t be here, and realizing that he doesn’t know where the magazine goes. He shoves it between two others and hopes no one notices it’s misplaced. 

He opens every unlocked file cabinet to find that they all contain magazines, paws through the folders stacked on Victoria’s desk and the bookcase, and finds nothing. He’s considering rifling through the recycling bin when he tries a drawer in Victoria’s desk and it slides open to reveal a line of folders. He flips through the first few, and by luck, his thumb finds the proposal. He notes the two folders it’s stuffed between and pries it from the drawer. 

After spending almost an hour raiding Victoria’s office space, Patrick doesn’t want to waste time making copies of every paper in the folder. It’s risky, but Patrick closes the desk drawer gently and slips the folder into his backpack with William’s files. The room looks exactly as he’d found it from the outside, and Patrick closes the door to Victoria’s office, tiptoes down the stairwell to the street, and re-enters the door code to the office. He waits for the beep and the click of the door before he throws his backpack over one shoulder and makes a run for the next bus to William’s apartment. 

William’s apartment building looks exactly as he remembers it, and worse, the doorman recognizes him. He lets Patrick into the building without asking questions, and Patrick takes the elevator up to the apartment and rings the doorbell. 

“You’re a life-saver,” William tells him minutes later, still in the doorway. He looks over the papers Patrick had given him and grins. They’ve wasted all their small talk; Patrick dramatizes breaking into the office after-hours and prepares to leave. 

“It was no big deal,” Patrick tells him. “I got some stuff to work on for Monday, too, so— it was good for me, too, but I should go.” He makes a gesture over one shoulder towards the elevator, implying that he should leave before he mentions the proposal or sneaking into Victoria’s office. 

William’s smile fades partially. Patrick shifts beneath the weight of his backpack, uncomfortable, and William asks, “ Are we really never going to speak to each other again?” 

“I don’t know,” Patrick replies. 

“Because I was serious,” William tells him, “About being friends.” Patrick doesn’t answer, and William continues, “I understand if you don’t want— thanks for getting the papers for me, it was—” 

“No,” Patrick says quickly. “I would like that.” 

William pauses before he replies. “You’re not just saying that because I’m the closest friend you have here?” 

Patrick clears his throat. “No.” That hadn’t been his thought, but now that he considers it, William is right. In terms of friends in Rome, Patrick has few, and none outside of his connections with the office. He says carefully, voice pinched, “You’re the one who called me.”

William glances into his apartment. He turns back to Patrick, his lower lip between his teeth, and asks like one would ask a crush on a first date, “Do you want to stay for dinner? It’s just going to be me.” 

“Oh.” Patrick hopes it doesn’t sound like a blind excuse. “I’m actually spending the night working on my proposal— the New York offer?” He curses himself for mentioning it.

William’s forehead creases. “Did you decide to take it?” 

“No,” Patrick clarifies. A short spell of silence falls between them as William waits for Patrick to elaborate. “I’m working on a counteroffer, actually.” He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I’m, um— I’m thinking of moving back to Boston.” 

Looking surprised but not shocked, William steps into the hallway and leans against the doorframe, the door still ajar. He offers, “Do you want help with that?” At Patrick’s open mouth, William explains, “I owe you a favor.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The putting the keys under your chin to find your car thing is from the original La La Land screenplay script, aaaand I'm sorry I've been so inconsistent in updating this :))


	20. In which William is the best friend he could possibly be (and more).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"so when joy hands me a fistful of burial I say_ thank you for the temporary _through clenched teeth" - Erin Slaughter_

_July, Year V.II_

In his post-wedding deliberations, Patrick sees him in everything, every television show or movie he watches, every album and awful show he writes about, and every dark-haired stranger on the streets. _It was good to see you,_ Pete said, and he had probably been lying just to be polite, but maybe it was true, in some wicked way. 

It’s a hot summer but the alleyways and sidewalks of the city are patrolled by no one but strangers with cold eyes. He wonders if the expanse of concrete between the North and South End of Boston is any warmer, and he misses him like he’s missed nothing else, a childish, immature nostalgia. Patrick has gotten a taste, addicting like his cigarettes, and it permeates his lungs until it hurts to breathe. It’s suffocating, and Patrick coughs it up enough that the people in his life are none the wiser, but lying sprawled across his own bed, big enough for two, Patrick grapples with the box on the nightstand and the room spins. 

If he shuts his eyes tight enough, Patrick can hear him in the shower, feel him get into bed, and touch Patrick’s side gently, hinting that Patrick should curl up against him and sleep.

“I need a fucking hobby,” Patrick tells Hayley, staring out his bedroom window into the street below and feeling overwhelmingly nauseous. He swears the alley shifts, and Patrick presses his thumbs into his temples. “Like, yesterday.” 

♥

William stands inches away from Patrick’s postage-stamp-sized kitchen island with his bag of groceries and looks thoroughly uncomfortable. There had been an invite, though impromptu, and with their romantic relationship over, having William over to his untidy apartment feels like exposing his own filth, both physical and metaphorical. Dishes litter Patrick’s kitchen counters, and his eyes dart to his bedroom door, wide open and exposing the explosion of clean laundry that he has yet to get around to folding, strewn over the bed and his open dresser drawers. His drink from earlier in the evening is sweating a ring into his coffee table and the laptop and papers that lie beside it are well within the trajectory of a spilled wine glass. William glances around the apartment blankly and makes a small noise, and feeling embarrassed, Patrick winces internally and corrals coffee mugs into the sink in an attempt to be accommodating. William sets the paper bag on the counter as soon as the space is free. 

“I’m so sorry for the mess,” Patrick rambles, face hot, and asks, “Do you want a glass of wine or anything? I’ve only got cans, I think.” 

“Sure, that would be great,” William replies, if only to be polite, and Patrick feels the trepidation towards the evening drain from every pore in his skin, leak from every orifice, and settle into a pool at his feet. William begins pulling groceries from the paper bag and adds as an afterthought, “Thank you.” 

Patrick nods, slides the canned wine from the refrigerator across the counter in William’s direction, and goes to fetch his laptop and tepid drink, promising himself he’ll do dishes while William works on dinner, and before anyone else comes over in the future. 

Patrick forgets how much he misses real food, filling and flavorful. He tries not to think that it might even be nutritious in some way, and that even if it’s the best thing he’s eaten in weeks, easily, he’s not hungry. He pokes at the bites of dinner left on his plate, and with his mouth full of food, William glances across the table and asks, “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” Patrick says quickly. He shovels food into his mouth. “I’m jus’ thinking. I had to take the proposal out of Victoria’s office because she kept it after I told her I wasn’t moving to New York. I’m just realizing that I did that.” 

William’s jaw shifts. One eyebrow twitches. He blinks and must decide not to point out the blatant breach of privacy before he accuses, “You’re serious about this.” Patrick looks up at him over the island. “Do you want to tell me why you’re moving back to Boston or is it a big secret?” 

“I’m not,” Patrick snaps, and realizes he’s been harsh. He sets the fork on the plate, tines down, and ignores the tiny amount of food still on his plate. He pushes the plate away from him into the center of the island. “I don’t know if I am. I’ve just— I’ve been thinking about it.” William watches him, chewing. “I might, if Victoria is on board with it.” 

“Why didn’t you just take the New York job? You could tell her you’ve changed your mind.” 

_Tell Victoria Patrick’s changed his mind,_ Patrick thinks snottily. He tells William stiffly, “Lots of reasons. I don’t want to live in New York,” and it’s not that he doesn’t want to live in New York, but that he’d rather live in Boston. He tries and fails to come up with any reason New York is better than Boston. He doesn’t care about Broadway, or government-funded manicured parks, or _Sex and the City._ William is quiet, and Patrick shifts on the barstool, sitting on his tailbone with shoulders rounded. “I’m going to have to beg Victoria to give me back the project.” 

“No, you won’t,” William says, voice high like it’s obvious. He shakes his head. “Don’t ask, just tell her you want to set up a time to meet and show her what you have, but, like, why Boston? Weren’t you trying to leave?” 

Patrick rolls his eyes at the mind-reading. “Why not?”

William shrugs and continues, “And she just wants what she can’t have. People are like that.” He shoves a massive bite into his mouth and thinks aloud, “Or, if she won’t give it to you, you can tell her if she doesn’t give it to you, you’ll just take your proposal and start something yourself.” 

“Threaten Victoria? She’s never been threatened by me or anyone else in her entire life.” 

“It’s not a threat,” William objects carefully. He shrugs and appears overly invested in his dinner. “Does your contract have a non-compete clause?” 

Patrick answers, “Don’t know. Should I look?” 

William shrugs again. “It’s probably void anyway if you move back to the US. You can just say it’s outside of their target consumer— not a competition.” 

“What about all the work for the proposal? Does that belong to me or Victoria?” Patrick drops his forehead to the counter, narrowly missing his plate. “I’m going to be sued.” 

“Doubt it,” William notes. “Do you have a lawyer? Are you going to show me what you have?” 

“Who just _has_ a lawyer?” Patrick sputters. William gives him a pointed look over his canned wine. “Yeah,” Patrick says, answering William’s second question and sounding defeated, “Right now,” and a short time later, Williams leans back into the couch and crosses one skeletal knee over the other, his refined wrist an extension of the hand holding Patrick’s four-dollar can of wine. It looks out of place; William’s deft slender fingers should support the curve of a vintageCartier glass and instead, he holds a tall aluminum can in a fist and removes the pull tab to set it down carefully on Patrick’s stained coffee table. The ensemble looks worse against Patrick’s decaying couch, color fading and fabric fraying where it meets a circular piece of carpeting. He’d bought the small rug and the decorative pillows in the hopes of elevating the space and had only succeeded in accentuating the couch’s overwhelming, offensive drabness.

As if telepathic, William touches a pillow with a knitted cover and after inspection, pulls it into his lap. “Okay, show me,” he says in reference to Patrick’s proposal, the counteroffer. 

“I didn’t make anything special,” Patrick replies. He hopes that William is not expecting a full presentation with slides and well thought out talking points when all he has constructed over the week is a Microsoft Word document of half-processed thoughts and his damning pros and cons list, strewed over multiple pages. Patrick pecks at his keyboard with two fingers, fumbling with the passcode, and brings up the document. He shoves the computer in William’s direction and says shortly, “Here.” 

Patrick glances between William’s face and his laptop screen as William pours over the messy collection of ideas. William gives no indication of endorsement or disapproval, eyes flickering over the laptop screen and fingers poised over the mouse, frowning with thought.He makes a face suddenly, and Patrick demands, “What?” 

“No,” William replies. “It’s good, but—” He considers how to phrase his inquisition sensitively, and begins again. “You’ve worked for Victoria and you’ve worked at the start-up, but have you ever worked with the in-between?” At Patrick’s quizzical look, William extrapolates, “You need to know what happens five years from now. You need a long-term plan.”

“I don’t _have_ that,” Patrick emphasizes. He anticipates William’s next comment, reiterating that he needs one —a long term business plan, that is— and humbles himself enough to accept William’s advice. It’s not entirely unsolicited. “How long?” 

“Ten years?” William offers. “It’s usually five, but ten is safe.” 

_Oh my God,_ Patrick thinks whimsically as reality settles in between the flashes of initial excitement. _In ten years, I will be— almost forty._ Patrick asks, “Do you have plans this weekend?” 

“Yes,” is William’s obliging reply. “I’m working on your ten-year business plan, love.” 

Patrick rolls his eyes and presses his face into William’s shoulder. It’s warm through William’s shirt, and with a second glass of wine and the weight of the past week weighing on him, Patrick feels seconds from sleep. He leans further into William’s side, sighs, and mumbles, “Doesn’t have to be a weekend, but, thank you.” 

_August, Year V_

Victoria slides hi-gloss prints into a manila folder on her desk with a short smile with Patrick steps into her office for their meeting Monday afternoon, and her secretive smirk is so disarming that Patrick almost asks if he should come back later. She slips the folder into a drawer in her desk, and Patrick’s mouth goes dry, wondering if she’d discovered the missing proposal, the barely noticeable empty slot between folders in the drawer. Her terse smile and empty eyes reveal nothing.

“So,” Patrick starts, and inhales bravura. “I have something for you.” Patrick hands her the multi-chaptered color-coded binder over the desk.

He’d finished it the last Friday night with William’s help, papers spread out over William’s hardwood floor. Patrick had developed an organizational system with some naturally occurring difficulty, and William hands him papers to snap into the rings of the binders: spreadsheets creased perfectly down the middle, shiny prints slipped into sheet protectors, and his secret weapon, a game-changing ten-year start-up plan he’d meticulously created with William’s wealth of knowledge as a support system. Patrick fits them all into the binder, starting from the back, and when he’s finished, he traces his fingers around the perimeter of the binder and lies back against the floor, exhausted.

Equally tired, William grabs Patrick’s coffee mug from the floor in front of him and takes a sip from it. He seems to realize halfway through that the concoction inside is not his own, pulls a quizzical face at the liquid inside, and places it gently back down on the floor before Patrick notices. William notes, “I thought you were drinking tea now.”

“Fuck tea,” Patrick groans.

William makes a blank face. He announces, “It looks good,” and Patrick hides his face with his elbow. “Are you going to give it to her this week?”

“Monday afternoon,” Patrick grunts, as if reluctantly confirming the date of his public execution. “We have a meeting.”

Victoria flips through a whole three pages of Patrick’s hours of work, two pages into the executive summary. She sits back in her rolling chair and closes the cover of the binder. He’s momentarily upset that she doesn’t give him the credit he deserves, any acknowledgement for the genius and lost sleep that he’d pressed between those sheet protectors. For a brief moment, he thinks in horror that she must _know_ that William had something to do with it and expects her to accuse him of breaking her loyalty, of corporate sabotage, rendering his non-disclosure agreement useless, but she takes a deep breath, staring at the binder. Her long acrylic nails scrape the plastic. “Look,” she starts. “It’s not— it’s not what I had in mind, but—”

“I know we talked about the New York prospect,” Patrick spills, “But I really feel like my resources are consolidated there. I can— I know where to get students that will work for me for cheap. I know you’ll support it in the beginning, but I know where I can get early-stage funding, and it’s close enough to New York that if it’s a contingency, then—”

“Patrick.” She interrupts him, presenting her longest fingernail. “It’s not what I wanted, but— I’m willing to work with you. If you really think you can be more successful there, we can try it. You can have six months. I’ll fund it for six months, and if you can flip it, you can have a year.” Victoria laughs, and for a moment she is gentler than Patrick has ever seen her, but Patrick’s blood runs cold.

Patrick is livid. He says, unprofessionally, “So that’s it? What happens after a year?”

“I’ll tell you after six months.” She smirks, and Patrick stares at her, lips parted. She watches him carefully over her desk and through eyelashes caked in mascara, she explains, “I’m saying, if you want this job, you should take it. I’m telling you it’s yours if you want it, and we’ll figure it out as we go.” She flips to a random page in the binder, too casual. “There’s some kind of plan in here, right?” 

Patrick’s head feels swimmy. His hands sweat and his chest is tight. Without thinking, Patrick hears himself tell Victoria, “I want the job; I’ll take it.”

“You can have a weekend to think about it— or, the week. You can have the week; I need the week to go over everything.” She tells him, “There’s going to be some conditions.” 

Patrick doesn’t care about the conditions, and though he doesn’t need the rest of the week, Patrick feels himself nod. “Thanks,” he says dumbly. “I’ll let you know on Friday.”

“Keep it together,” she says, “And we can make it work. I wouldn’t let you get this far if I didn’t think it’d work out.”

Patrick doesn’t believe her, but he thanks her again and flees the office with his heart still pounding.

♥

Patrick paces the length of the hall from his living space to the bedroom, his phone pressed to his ear and the thumb and knuckle of his index finger pressed into the corners of his eyes. His take-out is quickly getting cold on the kitchen counter, abandoned in pursuit of Hayley’s phone call. Their calls have become fewer and farther between; Patrick had been immersed in the proposal and Hayley is preparing for the fall semester. “I didn’t think she’d say yes. I have to tell her by the end of the week. I mean, I said yes, but I have to make a commitment by next Friday.” Patrick watches Sonkie sprint past him and before Hayley can congratulate him or reply otherwise, he reveals, “And she’s only giving me six months to prove it’ll work out.”

“Congratulations,” she says, unenthused like the offer is simply a fact, a natural consequence of his hard work, and maybe it is, although Patrick doesn’t feel that it is. She offers, “It’s doable.”

“Six months?” Patrick bemoans. “How am I going to flip it in six months? Six months is nothing.”

“Get someone to loan you money,” Hayley reasons, “Or get an investor to buy her out. What happens after six months?”

Patrick replies, “That’s what I said, and I don’t know. It’s just a lot of not knowing to say yes or no, you know?” Hayley’s silence on the other end of the phone oozes endless patience.  Patrick sighs, frustrated. “Tell me I’m being unreasonable,” he demands. “Tell me I shouldn’t move anywhere and I should just figure my shit out here and stop bitching about everything.” 

“I’m not going to tell you anything,” Hayley says pointedly. 

“Please?” Patrick whines. “I need some tough love.” 

Four thousand miles away, Hayley shakes her head. “Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry in the least. “You’re on your own for this one.” 

♥

Patrick walks the hallway outside of William’s apartment door, similar to the way he’s been pacing in his own apartment hallway since the phone call with Hayley, wearing a trench in the splitting hardwood flooring between his living space and the bedroom. It has become a nervous habit, to pace whilst thinking about one’s life choices, talking on the phone, or meditating on your numerous failed relationships. He’d made the decision after a long (read, hours about contingencies, expectations, and localized funding applications) phone call with Victoria on Thursday night, lying awake in bed and listening to the soft tick of his alarm clock, only audible if he tries to listen. Sonkie curled up in the crook of his knee and the blinds illuminated around the edges where the effulgence of the streetlights still manages to penetrate the room, Patrick stares wide-eyed at his plaster ceiling, wide awake like he’s on his third cup of coffee. He had more to lose when leaving Boston and still lunged for the opportunity, so why is it so hard this time around? 

It’s the embarrassment, the admittance of failure that comes with telling the acquaintances he hasn’t spoken to in years that he’s back in Boston (“For work,” is Patrick’s rehearsed explanation, with a smile that says, _don’t ask me to elaborate._ ), the circuitous loop that leads directly back to where he started, now with leverage and a handful of new connections, and the fear of running into old friends at nightclubs or over the coffee bar. He feels just as boring, lost, and vaguely lovesick, coveting intimacy, as two years previous, but now he’s comfortable in it— one could call it resigned, except that he finds support in late-night phone conversations with Hayley, the stability of his routine with Nate, and William’s quiet background involvement in everything he does. It’s still a lot to give up (another lifetime), but Patrick’s never been one for making reasonable decisions, so with the anxiety of a prototype due before the new year and a promise of some private funding, Patrick rolls over, pulls the bedsheets over his head, and eventually falls asleep.

A door opens at the other end of the hallway, and, not wanting an audience for his stereotypies, Patrick twists his key in the lock and lets himself into William’s apartment. 

William is sitting on the couch when he comes in. He looks up from the magazine in his lap and hesitantly holds it up for Patrick to see _Tempo_ presented across the magazine cover and Patrick’s latest piece written down the right cover column, the headline in red bloc font, and a quote underneath it. It feels unfair. Patrick closes the front door behind him gently, and William admits, “It’s intriguing,” 

“I worked hard on that one,” Patrick asserts, leaving his coat and keys by the door. He steps into the living room and gives William a tight-lipped smile. He confesses, “I’m moving back to Boston.” 

William is understandably silent for a moment before he closes the magazine on his lap and fixes his eyes on Patrick. “Oh. When?” 

“I don’t know,” Patrick guesses, “Soon?”

William laughs, and Patrick crosses his arms, leans against the doorframe, and rubs his hands up and down his biceps, a nervous habit he’d picked up subconsciously observing Pete’s charm. William stares at him expectantly, arms outstretched, and offers a lopsided-grin. He waits for Patrick to offer additional information but it doesn’t come, and Patrick heaves a tired laugh. “Whenever you figure it out!” William remarks. He seems to sense Patrick’s apprehension and enthuses, “This is so cool! I’m so excited for you. Are you excited about this?” 

Unconsciously, Patrick clenches his hands into fists. He clears his throat. “Um, it hasn’t really set in yet.” William’s face falls slightly, and Patrick laughs again, a real laugh, though it carries a foreboding undercurrent. “And, um— you’re the first person I’ve told, other than Victoria, ‘cause you’ve kind of been keeping me sane lately.” 

William acknowledges his sense of responsibility. His eyebrows are furrowed with concern; he stands from the couch, and Patrick feels smaller than he’s ever felt next to him. “Can I give you a hug?” William asks. “You look like you could use a hug.” 

“Yeah, sure,” Patrick says. 

William enfolds him in a tight embrace. “It’s okay,” he says, “I know it’s not about me.” 

Patrick presses his face into William’s shoulder with watery eyes and thinks that in another world, he would die here.

_We all look for heaven and we put love first,_

_Something that we'd die for, it's a curse,_

_Don't cry about it. —_ This Is What Makes Us Girls 

“We’re going to try it,” Patrick tells William later. He sits cross-legged on William’s balcony and folds his pizza into his mouth. William has bought him celebratory take-out, after confessing that he’s too tired to cook anything worth eating. It’s an excuse Patrick has heard times before and it never gets old. William’s hair falls into his face as he peels a mushroom off his pizza like a dissection. He makes a face and wipes the hair out of his face with his forearm, unaware that he has an admirer; Patrick smiles to himself. 

“We’re giving it six months,” Patrick continues, “Maybe a year, and if we make no traction, an’ there’s no interest, then— then I move back, I guess, or I get another job there. I’ll probably just get another job there. Maybe Hayley and I will work together again, I don’t know.”

“Like a trial period?”

“Yes,” Patrick confirms. “It’s like a trial. You get a certain amount of money and a certain amount of time.”

William nods. “Did she like your business plan?”

Patrick shrugs. “I think so— enough anyway. She barely looked at it in front of me, but she gave me the go-ahead, right? I get to spend some time here occasionally, so that’s good, and I have to spend some time in New York sometimes, because she has a friend there, you know — but that’s not a big deal, I guess, as long as she pays for it.” 

“And she’s paying for it?”

“Yeah, and most of moving, too.”

William leans back against his hands and looks him over. He gives a small appreciative smile, and Patrick tries not to be embarrassed. William asks, “And I’m really the only person you’ve told?” 

“Yes,” Patrick replies with his mouth full. He refuses to acknowledge William’s dumb smirk. “Shut up about it.” 

William’s mouth twitches further upwards, almost unnoticeable. “I’ve surpassed Hayley in secret-keeping,” he says, and Patrick rolls his eyes. “You should tell her, though, and then, someone dropped off a bottle of Barbaresco earlier in the week if you’d be interested in that.” 

“Who?” Patrick snaps, and William winks. 

“It’s a secret.” 

Patrick, as it turns out, is interested in a glass (or two, or three) of Barbaresco, regardless of who’s bought it. They move outside to the balcony; the weather is starting to get cooler as the sun goes down and fall creeps up on them, and Patrick pulls his sweater over his head before he sits down on the cold concrete and waits for the glass of wine William has offered him. He waits to call Hayley, feeling like it will interrupt their evening alone and because he wants to tell Hayley while William isn’t around in case the conversation descends into two hours of gossip, as it often does. 

William slides the door to the balcony closed and falls into his lounge chair. He extends two glasses to Patrick. “Pick one, they’re the same,” he tells Patrick, “And there’s seltzer inside if you want it.” 

Patrick takes the glass from William’s hand and peers at the fruit and ice floating in the top of the glass. “That’s very sweet,” Patrick replies. “Thank you.” 

“Hey,” William starts carefully, and Patrick knows he’s about to be asked something provocative just by William’s intonation and the playful smile William is wearing when Patrick side-eyes him from his space on the concrete. William crosses one knee over the other and pokes at the frozen raspberries he’d poured into his drink. “Uh— you never told me about your friend’s wedding. Was it— fun? 

_I’ve been masturbating furiously to the thought of what could have happened,_ Patrick imagines voicing aloud, or, _the fact that my not-ex-boyfriend left his new boyfriend at home brings me perverse joy,_ or alternatively, less Pete-centric, _I don’t really believe in marriage, but the part where I had to make small talk with blissfully unaware drunk people was incredible._ Patrick scrunches his nose and laughs. “Not really,” he answers. “Mostly it was awkward. I spent the whole night drinking with Hayley.” William leans towards him in his chair, a subtle indication of interest, and Patrick launches into the highlights: a modest ceremony, several artless interactions with old friends, William’s lookalike, ditching the reception to drink wine spritzers and cheap seltzer at an empty bar on the water. He touches lightly on the episode with Pete, leaving it to the end, and tries his hardest to ignore William’s sigh, the half smile, and the unsubtle glance to the side. 

“You still like him,” William announces fondly. 

“I mean, yeah,” Patrick admits, tipsy enough to be honest, socially lubricated. “I don’t think that’s ever going to change.” William nods knowingly, and visibly in thought, steps inside to refill his glass of wine, taking Patrick’s glass with him without asking. Patrick looks up from his thoughts and realizes it’s gotten dark. 

At the bottom of his second glass of wine, Patrick fits his ankle through the vertical bars of William’s balcony, dangling his foot over the edge, and leans back against his elbows. He drops his head to rest on his forearms on the concrete and drags his eyes up the seam on the outside of William’s jeans until he meets William’s eyes. William blinks. “I still kind of want to lick his abs,” Patrick says, nonchalant. William raises one eyebrow. “Is this weird?” 

William has brought a pack of cigarettes back with him from inside. He shakes the box and turns his attention to the package, peers inside, and says almost absently, “That you want to lick his abs?” William pokes at the few cigarettes left in the box and exhales a laugh through his nose. 

“No, that I’m telling you all this.” 

William takes the punch like he hasn’t even been hit. “Maybe. Who gives a fuck?” He fishes a new cigarette out of the box and drops the box into Patrick’s lap. Patrick retrieves the box and pours the sticks into his hand. William extends an open lighter, the usual silver Zippo, and Patrick leans into his hands to light up. The lighter clicks and goes out, and William slips it back into the pocket of his jeans and says, “Are you going to message him that you’re moving back?”

Patrick echoes William’s earlier sentiment, his hands cupped around his cigarette to make sure it doesn’t go out. He inhales deeply and sets his open hand down on the concrete with his cigarette balanced between his index and middle finger. “Maybe,” he says, “I’m avoiding it.” William nods at him, and Patrick asks, “And what are you going to do?” 

“I don’t know.” William shrugs. “Maybe I’ll ask Nate’s friend out when I get around to it. Do you think he’s fit?” 

“Would he go out with you?” 

William laughs and nudges Patrick’s shoulder. “I said, do you think he’s fit?” 

“Sure,” Patrick replies. “Do you?” 

“He’s fit in my daydreams. Do you think he’d go out with me?” William balances the lit cigarette between his teeth. 

Patrick watches him fondly, blinks, and says after a moment, “He’d be stupid not to.” 

William revels in the compliment for a moment, face shifting. He appears unsure of himself and avoids the endorsement by declaring, “Suck-up.”

Patrick’s head lolls backward; he stares at William over his right shoulder, cocky, eyes glittering, and after dark, when William’s kitchen is soaked in a pale yellow luminescence like a film school project, the backstage of every shitty nobody show that Patrick’s ever been to, Christmas lights in warm white, Patrick perches on the countertop with dilated eyes and the remains of his third drink and watches William fumble around the kitchen, cleaning up from dinner and washing dishes. He downs the rest of the drink before he hands the dirty glass to William with a slight smile. William washes it out in the sink and reaches above him to replace it in the cabinet. His hands brush Patrick’s hair on the way down, and Patrick wraps his hands around William’s elbows and laughs when William admits, like a spilled secret, “You’re so fucking handsome.” 

He’s still cute, and sweet, and financially stable (Patrick matches one, maybe two at times, of these three things, and thinks he’s doing pretty well), so Patrick slides his hands through loose hair at the nape of William’s neck, closes his eyes, and kisses him. 

It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s feeling skeptical after his conversation with Hayley at the wedding or the fact that he hasn’t been laid since the weird fling with Joe’s friend after the breakup with William; he’s finished trying his cards with attractive strangers at bars and at parties, now confident that his sexual fantasies are relatively vanilla, inspired more by human connection and _okay,_ he can admit to himself begrudgingly, _love._ More than that, he knows what he wants, and they might not be the perfect fit, better off friends than lifetime lovers, but he loves William regardless, or he should stop trying to interpret his thoughts when he’s inebriated and there’s a vague promise of sex in the near future. 

William kisses him the same as he did before the break-up, and it is this Patrick is glad for, William’s fingers under his chin and their chests pressed together. William kisses him until he needs to take a breath, and Patrick opens his eyes to meet open brown eyes staring back at him, their foreheads pressed together. He feels William’s hand twitch on his lower back and lets William’s hands guide their hips together. “Once?” Patrick asks, and laughs at the sheer ridiculousness of the soft eyes William is giving him. “For old time’s sake?” 

“You won’t regret it tomorrow?” 

“No.” 

William asks, “And you won’t be weird about it tomorrow?” 

“No.” He crosses his fingers against William’s chest and says against William’s mouth, “I swear I won’t be.” 

“I make you no promises,” William whispers. His gaze drifts to Patrick’s cherry-colored mouth, and Patrick laughs loudly. It rebounds off the walls and the kitchen cabinets and seeps into the living room and the hallway, and Patrick wraps his tiny legs around William’s tiny waist and lets William carry him off to the bedroom. 

Patrick stops him in the living room, disentangles his forearm from William’s armpit, and catches the corner of the couch with his fingers. William drops him against the back of the couch, Patrick’s thighs still bracketing his own, his hands on Patrick’s thighs. 

“Wait,” Patrick mumbles. “Sorry,” and Patrick deposits his glasses on the couch cushions, strips his shirt, and undoes his belt, and when he’s satisfied with being partially undressed, he tucks a stray piece of William’s hair behind his ear and whispers, “Okay, I’m ready.” William scoops him up with his hands on Patrick’s ass and stumbles the rest of the way down the hallway with an exchange of kisses and soft encouraging noises. 

William undresses from his jeans and button-up in a fit of gleeful anticipation in the bedroom after carefully depositing Patrick on the mattress, all still-perfect hair and pink in the face. He crawls into bed, plants his knees on either side of Patrick’s hips, and asks with quickening breaths, “What’s the—? Tell me what you want.” He sits back on his heels and fixes his hair, and Patrick concentrates on refocusing his eyes when he hasn’t thought of anything but William’s hands, William’s mouth, and William’s cock since leaving his glasses on the couch. 

Patrick groans, unable to produce any cohesive request. “I don’t— just come here and we’ll figure it out,” and William nods, ducks his head, and kisses his collarbones, and finally, his mouth again. 

They don’t fit together like they were made for one another, William somehow either too tall or not tall enough, but it’s pretty fucking close. William’s hands cup Patrick’s side-body perfectly, slipping to palm the linear protrusions of Patrick’s hips and hold him still against the sheets to grind his cock against Patrick’s, still in his briefs. Patrick smooths his thumbs over the dimples in William’s lower back and into the waistband of his underwear and asks with no room for discussion, “Can you take these off?” 

He’s not telepathic but at least he listens. “Yes,” William quickly replies. It’s an awkward fumble to remove the remainder of their clothing with William still on top of him but somehow it works. William wraps a hand smeared with saliva and pre-come around both of them, and Patrick could melt. 

Patrick sinks his hands into William’s hair. “Do you have lube?” 

William stills and drops his face to Patrick’s shoulder. “Um— fuck, probably in the bathroom.” 

“Fuck,” Patrick echoes, too far gone to instigate any expedition for lubricant, condoms or anything other than the necessities. “’T’s okay, just stay. This is— fucking good.”

It’s fucking without rules and it’s stupid to pursue perfection but it’s better than when they were together, the pervasive undertone that they’re just scratching an itch; Patrick knows William is interested in someone else, between the conversation about Nate’s hot friend and the implications of the bottle of Barbaresco. Lines get crossed, connections are missed, and Patrick makes a point of closing his eyes, presses the pads of his fingers to where William’s shoulder blades float over his spine, impersonal, almost indiscriminate between bodies, and lets himself fantasize about tattooed deltoids and vampiric teeth sunk into his earlobe and tight abdominals. If Williams notices or if William minds, he doesn’t care to divulge his grievances to Patrick, so Patrick indulges himself in thoughts of the master bedroom of Gabe’s beach house, the passenger seat of a black BMW, the slick plexiglass shower door of an apartment in Cambridge, and chews a hole on the inside of his lower lip keeping himself from choking out anything other than _William_ or _fuck_ when he lets go. He pushes William’s mouth away from his neck as he comes. 

♥

Five hours backward and curled up in bed after a movie out, Pete rests his head on Mikey’s chest and scrolls through his phone. Strangers still persistently tag in him endless photos from the wedding, and when Hayley’s name comes up as also tagged in the photo, Pete glances up at Mikey, eyes closed and maybe asleep, and mindlessly views her profile. 

Hayley’s profile is mostly pictures of herself and her boyfriend, his dog, and Hayley out with other women he doesn’t know, the occasional picture with Erin. He scrolls until he finds the pictures from the wedding, but he catches something else from the past spring, and — that’s Hayley and Patrick, and that’s the staircase at Lir. 

Pete squints at the tiny picture. He steals a second look at Mikey, sighs, and enlarges the picture with a pinch of his fingers in reverse. Hayley looks happier than Pete thinks he’s ever seen her, wide smile and eyes squinted closed, so arrestingly gleeful that he thinks it might be fake. Patrick looks like himself, mostly, minus a few pounds and the shot-glass-happy grin he’s wearing, his arms around Hayley in jeans that don’t fit like they should and a t-shirt that hugs his shoulders perfectly. That’s how Patrick looks happy, mostly. Pete lifts his fingers from the screen and the image slides back into place. 

Mikey touches Pete’s face and sighs lightly. Pete feels the corner of his mouth twitch down. Mikey doesn’t seem to notice. 

“I was thinking,” Mikey starts, fingers tracing down Pete’s neck. “My lease is up soon and I’m not sure I’m keeping my apartment, which means I’m looking for a roommate.” 

Pete laughs lightly. Mikey’s tone is light and teasing, fingers walking down the back of Pete’s shoulder. Mikey’s sharp ribs press into his cheekbones, and he can feel when Mikey returns the laugh. “What’s wrong with the apartment?”

“Nothing,” Mikey asserts. His fingers are tickling the back of Pete’s shoulder. “I’m impartial.” 

Pete shrugs against Mikey’s hand and frowns. “I like my apartment,” he says, noncommittal. 

The realization collides with Pete like a minor car accident. He pushes himself up on his elbows, rolls off of Mikey’s chest, and throws Mikey a scrutinizing look. Pete’s hands are cold. He blinks. “You’re asking if you can move in with me?” 

The accusation is maybe harsher than Pete had intended. Pete raises his eyebrows, mouth slightly open, and Mikey abruptly looks guilty and uncomfortable. He explains with faux poise, “Um— I’m not, actually, I just thought I’d mention it.” Pete is sitting now, stiffly, covers pooled at his waist. Mikey is at least an arm’s length away. 

“I’ve never had a roommate outside of college,” Pete says dumbly, anxiety quickly brewing in his chest. He blinks again; his head feels fuzzy. 

Mikey is taken aback. “You’ve only had a roommate in college?” 

“Yeah,” Pete tells him, unsure of why he’s panicking, why he wants Mikey to leave, why he wants to be safe in his own bed, alone. “I mean, I like having my own space, and—” 

Mikey makes a guttural noise of disbelief. “It’s expensive.” 

“Yeah,” Pete replies, and laughs. “That’s why I work sixty hours a week.” Mikey stares at him, hurt, and Pete offers, “I’m not saying never, just not right now, Mikey.” 

“Okay.” 

_Stop freaking out,_ Pete tells himself. It does nothing for him. Does he owe Mikey an apology? “We can talk about it again later.” 

Mikey throws the sheets away from his body and sighs. “Pete, it’s fine. It was just a thought. We don’t need to talk about it anymore.”

“Do you want dinner?” Pete asks. The change of subject is abrupt at best, and Pete catches Mikey’s stifled eye roll. 

Mikey hesitates before saying, “No, I should probably go soon.” He reaches for his shirt on the floor, his back to Pete, and pulls it over his head, then his sweatshirt on top of it. He stands to pull on his jeans and Pete looks away, swallows, and scrubs at his eyes. 

Pete gets dressed carefully, listening to Mikey wash his face in the bathroom and pad down the hallway to leave. He follows Mikey into the kitchen and chokes around a goodbye; Mikey stares at him from the opposite side of the counter, irritated, and Pete should open the door for him or kiss him goodbye, or both, but it doesn’t feel like a wise decision. Mikey fills a glass with water from the sink, drinks out of it, and puts it back while Pete watches from the hallway, and when Mikey turns around, Pete asks, indignant, “Why does this keep happening? I don’t want to fight with you, Mikey, I like you.” 

“Because,” Mikey snaps. “You never seem like you’re having fun unless we’re sleeping together, and I like you  but we can’t do anything other than fuck without fighting about it.” Pete stares at the floor, face twisted, and Mikey continues, “We can go out and do something nice, and it always turns into a fight later. It’s like we can hang out for two hours, and have sex, and that’s it.” 

And, _yeah,_ Pete thinks, because that’s the arrangement— they do something fun, split dinner, have sex, and then Mikey leaves in time for Pete to get up for work tomorrow with no split hairs. 

“Yeah,” Pete emphasizes. “Did you want something else out of this?” 

“I don’t—” Mikey starts, looking stung. He swipes at his face with the cuff of his sweatshirt sleeve and gives Pete a miserable look. “I don’t think we have the same idea of what’s going on here.” 

“Mikey.” 

“Pete,” Mikey retorts, mocking him, and breezes, “I’ll just call you tomorrow.” He sweeps  his wallet and keys off of Pete’s countertop, stuffs his socked feet in disintegrating sneakers, and marches towards the door. “I had fun tonight, other than the—” He doesn’t finish the thought but gives Pete a tense smile and a singular wave before he slams the door. 

Mikey texts him later, because Mikey never says what he really feels to Pete’s face.  _It’s fine that you don’t want to move in with me and I wasn’t expecting you to but it kind of sucks that you act like its the hardest decision you’ve ever been asked to make._

 _i’m sorry,_ Pete writes in return. _i wasn’t expecting it. want to talk about it_

Mikey takes an inordinate amount of time to respond. Pete thinks his response is unfair. _No. I just wanted you to know_

It’s barely past dinner time, but Pete turns his phone off for the night. 

♥

“It’s too hot to sleep,” Patrick whispers into the dark, William’s nose in the bend of his elbow and William’s thin arm across his waist. 

He hears William sigh and roll away from him, reaching for the light beside the bed, and Patrick squints against the brightness when it clicks, illuminating the bed and parts of the bedroom floor in a hazy blue glow. He shoves the covers away from his chest and sits up to watch William flop himself backward into the mattress. Perfectly white bedsheets pulled up to protruding collarbones, William stares at him with soft eyes under unkempt eyebrows, and in the time it takes for Patrick’s watch to tick forward once, still strapped to his wrist even in sleep, Patrick thinks he could fall in love twice. 

He’s sure that it’s possible when William presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and laughs, thick and marinated in sleep, and Patrick recalls dreamlike post-coital conversations and shared cigarettes. He reaches across the bed to brush his fingers over William’s arm under the sheets. William has soft skin and thick wiry hair scattered across every part of his body, and Patrick finds this incongruence fascinating, wondering if William can feel the difference between the hair on his forearms and the thin, silky hair in his skull. The pads of Patrick’s fingers find a patch of soft skin on the back of William’s bicep and linger there. Patrick informs him again, “I can’t sleep, and I’m worried I shouldn’t move."

William says, “It’s three in the morning. You need to find someone who wants to have this conversation at three in the morning,” a nasty reminder that Patrick had someone with whom to have this discussion past midnight, and that William hadn’t been it. 

“Yeah, I know.” 

William rolls back to him and wraps his arms around Patrick’s waist. He touches his nose to Patrick’s side and mumbles, “Don’t you get bored of being skeptical? 

“What do you mean?” 

“Like, you’re always second-guessing yourself and you say you’re never getting married. You really don’t think there’s one person on this Earth you’d agree to marry?” 

Patrick laughs, and against his side, William grins. “Not one person,” Patrick maintains. “I’ve never been in love and I’m never getting married.” 

William hums, and says very cautiously, “I don’t think that’s true, but it’s none of my business.” Patrick frowns and looks past him at the streetlights outside. William catches on quickly. “You’re not a failure for moving back.” 

“Yeah.” Patrick twists his fingers in William’s bedsheets, thinking. “It kind of feels like that, though.” He looks down at William, who stares up at him, and suddenly laughs, falls back between William’s feather pillow and a stray throw pillow, and confesses, “I love you. It doesn’t mean shit, but— I love you.” 

“You’re going to have everything you’ve ever wanted, you know,” William tells him in the doorway later in the morning, at a more respectable hour. He grabs Patrick’s wrists in his hands and kisses one corner of Patrick’s mouth, then the other. “Call me when you figure it out.”

Patrick promises to call with details about the job, updates on apartments and moving, and the timeline, and he promises to call before then, too. He leaves William in the doorway with a real kiss, William’s forearms holding Patrick’s shoulder blades flat against his ribs, and at home on his bedroom floor, Patrick cries until the backs of his hands are blotchy and his cheeks sting with salt, because breaking up is hard to do.

♥

It takes Patrick the fall to figure everything out. Four months of rushed plans; Victoria gives him an advance in September and Patrick spends the first month making plans for the start-up: locating and renting an office space on the Broadway side of Harvard Yard, finding a printhouse willing to produce magazines on demand for the first few months, and making phone calls to offer a job to every co-op he’s ever felt any fondness towards. 

Hayley jumps into finding an apartment for him like a second full-time job. She sends him listing after listing through the month of October; Patrick sneaks looks at them on his desktop at work when the office is quiet, and he eventually settles on the second floor apartment of a duplex in Chelsea, east of Cambridge. Hayley goes to the viewing for him and returns delighted by the fact that she was able to see airplanes take off and land from the Logan airport through the bedroom window. Patrick is apathetic about this, instead asking, “Do you think I need a car?” 

“No,” she says. “It’s perfect, but they did say no pets.” 

William, Joe, and Nate help him pack through November, on free weekends and empty weeknights. They’re rarely there at the same time; Patrick buys take-out for Joe in return and they spend the rest of evening bickering about guitars, he adopts all reviews of the shows in exchange for Nate’s help, and William seems to show up just because he wants to be there, of his own volition. William is Patrick’s preferred company, because he brings Patrick leftovers when the groceries start to dwindle, forces him to take a break when packing becomes too emotionally tolling, and because he understands the whole situation like no one else does. They share food and music, and the occasional filthy kiss that never gets any further than Patrick’s hands up the front of William’s shirt.

He smokes a final cigarette with William on the night before he leaves in December, back against the vertical bars of William’s balcony railing, and politely declines the glass of wine that’s offered to him. He makes the heartbreaking decision to leave Sonkie with William, and though he might cry when he lets her go, she seems none the wiser. Moving back isn’t the same as moving from, there’s less excitement and less fear of the unknown, but it still conjures some unrivaled déjà vu— not of his move from Boston to Rome, but when he kisses William quickly in the airport as he’s leaving, he tastes Pete. 

_January, Year VI_

Boston is very much the same, and at the same time, vastly different. Instead of moving into his apartment the day of his flight, Patrick spends three nights in a hotel when he gets home, stretched out on the hotel bed and touching the corners, still reveling in the way it feels to sleep alone. The hotel sheets are soft and the duvet is white and fluffy, and Patrick marvels at the contrast between his hands and the creme-colored sheets in the sun Friday morning. It’s late in the morning and the day is warm and sunny for the winter outside of the eighth story window, but Patrick has no responsibilities for the day and therefore closes the blinds and goes back to sleep. 

“Come on,” Hayley says, already bored by day two. “You don’t have to move in today. You don’t have to deal with the packages, and you don’t even have to go shopping with me today, but I am making you go out for breakfast with me. You have to reintegrate into society someday.” Patrick has yet to get out of bed. He shifts to peer at the digital clock on the side table and is taken aback by how early it is, far to early to think about breakfast, and too early still for Hayley to be calling to make breakfast plans. “I’m taking you to breakfast,” she declares, as if he hadn’t been listening to the first half of her announcement. “Want to go to Stephanie’s and I’ll make a reservation for an hour from now?” 

“Stephanie’s?” Patrick echoes, dumbfounded. He rolls to face the ceiling and scratches at the underside of his chin. He’d still need to shower, shave, brush his teeth, and muster up the courage to be both seen in public and face the freezing January wind within an hour. “Yeah, when I win the fucking lottery, maybe.” 

“Well, we’re celebrating, so I’ll buy,” Hayley tells him. “I’ll meet you in forty-five minutes, and then we’ll go shopping for the house after breakfast.” 

Patrick scrubs at the crust in the corners of his eyes. “I thought you just said I didn’t have to go shopping for stuff for the house today.” 

“I lied,” she says. Patrick rolls his eyes and throws the covers off of himself. “You can’t hide forever!” she adds before she ends the call. 

Breakfast is not the relaxing morning out that either of them hoped for it to be. Patrick is still exhausted from traveling, the emotional toll of moving, and tiffed at being woken up early enough to eat breakfast with the rest of the city. Further, he is unresponsive to her attempts at interrogation; she makes small talk, spills the latest gossip on their mutual friends, and fails to engage Patrick in a conversation about his furnishing plans for the new house. He is thoroughly unimpressed. Hayley rolls her eyes and finishes the coffee in the bottom of her mug, sopping with sugar. She inquires, “Have you talked to William at all?” 

“What, since I got back?” 

“Yeah.”

Patrick takes a large bite of his eggs and pushes the rest to the opposite side of his plate. “Yes, yesterday morning.” 

“And?” 

“And? That’s it, I just called to say I got here.” 

Hayley gives him a long, bromidic look across the table, her coffee mug still clasped in her hands. Patrick shrugs, and Hayley asks, “Okay, have you talked to Pete at all?” 

Patrick visibly stiffens and sets his utensils down on the table with purpose, squirming in his seat. He glances to the sidewalk outside and meets Hayley’s eyes only momentarily. “No,” Patrick snaps. “Why would I? We don’t _talk._ ” 

“You talked at the wedding,” Hayley points out. She gestures at him with her mug and mutters, just loud enough for him to hear from feet away, “Just like you _talked_ at Gabe’s birthday parties and how you _talked_ about you moving to Italy. You had the chance to say something at the wedding and honestly, I’m still kind of surprised you didn’t go home together.” 

“Hayley.” 

“What?” she exclaims with a matching eye roll. “I really thought you’d, I don’t know, rekindle something, seeing each other at the wedding. Don’t pretend you didn’t think about it. I almost made bets with your friends.” At Patrick’s heated glance, she laughs sharply and continues, “And don’t act like it’s a ridiculous thought, because we’ve been waiting for this for years; the only person more surprised when you guys stopped talking was, um, everyone else.” 

Patrick makes a pile of dirty silverware next to his plate and shoves the plate into the middle of the table, most of his breakfast still uneaten. “So everyone places bets on my relationships now?” 

“Just this one,” Hayley confesses. She touches his forearm across the table and sighs. “Don’t be mad— come on, Patrick, don’t be unreasonable. You have to admit it’s a little funny. It’s entertaining.” 

“I’m not unreasonable.” 

“You are unreasonably upset,” she says, more gently. “You’re in such a bad mood this morning.” 

Patrick grumbles, “I’d feel better if you’d stop interrogating me,” and when he doesn’t get the fractious response he feels he deserves, he tells her, nose wrinkled, ““I just— I feel weird. I feel like— I feel like I need to get everything out. Just, like, purge everything and start over.” 

“Okay,” Hayley says suddenly. “Let’s go out tonight. We can go get all your stuff today, and we can do the house tomorrow.” 

“And finish my house tomorrow with a hangover? No, thank you.” Patrick makes an awkward grab for his coffee mug on the table and takes a sip, emphasizing his commitment to sober house-doing. 

Hayley thinks for a moment. “Okay, so we’ll go house shopping today and we can do dinner and low-key drinks at your new place tonight— stop for take-out and the liquor store on the way home.” 

Patrick reluctantly agrees, if only to spend more time with Hayley. It’s Saturday, he has nothing else to do, and he’ll be stuck shopping for furniture alone if he doesn’t catch her on a weekend. She is elated that he agrees and spends the rest of breakfast between making a list of items to buy now versus later and coaxing Patrick into eating the rest of his breakfast. 

It takes the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon to pick out most of the furniture and home decor. They walk downtown from Newbury Street to shop somewhere more affordable, and Patrick buys dishes, barstools, and bedding, and orders a television stand, a bookshelf, and chairs for an existing kitchen table to be delivered to the house later, all before noon. He leaves Hayley to pick out a new color to repaint the bathroom while he makes a run to the closest Pavement for coffee. 

“Robin’s egg or Permafrost Blue?” she asks when he returns, presenting the color samples inches from his face. Patrick hesitates, reaches for one, and then grabs for the other, and Hayley snatches both away, exclaiming, “Don’t think, just pick one!” Patrick chooses Permafrost. 

It becomes second nature with practice to slap Victoria’s company credit card on the counter for bigger purchases like his bed frame and mattress, confident in charging to credit like he’s never had the chance to be. He requests assisted express delivery like he has money to spend and talks the man behind the counter into letting him order a discontinued color for his dresser, because it’s a perfect match next to the bed frame. He sends Hayley to buy staple groceries in the late afternoon while he searches for a suitable couch at a second-hand store, kisses her on the cheek as she leaves, and meets her in the Chelsea duplex with take-out and the day’s treasures loaded into the back of a rented ZipCar. 

“Never in my life have I wanted this more,” Patrick tells Hayley later, as he reaches for a second shot glass on the coffee table after spending hours unwrapping and assembling complicated furniture assembly packages and rearranging the existing furniture in the house, and they’re still far from approaching finished. They’d saved the alcohol for after the furniture assembly and fortunately so; Hayley twists a slice of lime from the edge of a shot glass and knocks back an ounce of vodka with Patrick in short pursuit. He holds his other drink to his chest, a fifty-fifty mix of cheap whiskey and apple cider from the food co-op, and informs Hayley with a pretentious air, “I’m Lemonading.” 

She laughs. “You can’t Lemonade unless you’ve been cheated on.” 

The alcohol goes down easily but Patrick shakes his head anyways, be it vodka or in Hayley’s direction. “No, it just means exercising your rights after getting your heart broken.” 

Hayley’s eyebrows fly to her hairline. “Heartbroken?” she shrieks, “Which time?” She swings her legs over the arm of the couch and leans back into Patrick’s new (old) couch. 

“Fuck you,” is Patrick’s calculated response, “And I’m not arguing with you over the nuance of a Beyoncé album. I get paid for that.” 

“You seemed happy to argue with me this morning,” Hayley gripes. Patrick sits on the floor rug, the edges tucked neatly under the legs of his couch and the television stand, with his legs outstretched and holds his liquor between his thighs. Hayley nudges his knee and bumps the glass, ice clinking against the glass. She rolls to stare at him over the arm of the couch. Patrick throws her a half-hearted dirty look. 

The floor is barely visible under the mess of cardboard boxes and plastic wrapping, and though they still have plenty to do, Patrick finds himself surprised at how quickly the living room had come together in the few evening hours, before they’d both agreed they were starving and exhausted. Under the boxes and plastic, and a massive intricately patterned area rug, the floors are cherry hardwood, crooked and worn in highly trafficked places. The living room windows overlook part of a cemetery, residential parking, and a glimpse of Mystic River in the daylight, and the living room itself seems too large for the house, spilling into a modest achromatic kitchen and an offset space Patrick is deeming a dining room. An open flight of stairs leads to a bedroom hidden within an l-shaped hallway on the second floor, a closet big enough for two people, and a full bathroom directly across the hall. It’s nearly perfect, and even unfinished, it’s beginning to feel like home. There are few things in life to which he doesn’t owe to Hayley completely. 

The night descends into their usual silliness— an immeasurable amount of gossip, a study of Hayley’s recent sex life, some social media stalking. Getting drunk with Hayley is the purest form of fun there is, a bad movie on his laptop and even worse jokes, the absence of a social filter, forgotten drink glasses littered over every available surface. 

“Can I say something awful?” 

“Yes,” Hayley laughs. “Please tell me something awful.” 

Patrick sets his drink on the floor and takes a deep breath. He makes his best attempt at talking around his liquor. “How do you even afford an apartment in Back Bay when you work for your brother? It’s just— an’ I’m not passing judgement, I’m just saying that we looked, and everything was, like, three-thousand a month.”

Hayley curls herself further into the couch and giggles with her hand over her mouth. “You could afford that, too, if you had roommates, or maybe his brother pays his rent.” 

“Do I sound jealous? Be honest."

“Of the apartment?” Hayley disintegrates into a fit of laughter, and when she sobers up, announces, “It’s nepotism.” 

“It’s nepotism!” 

“Are you sure you aren’t just jealous?” 

“Oh my God, they’re going to have a bunch of skinny cute children funded by familial wealth, and I am going to die for a pay-cheque that— I don’t know, I just want to pay off my credit card debt by the time I die.” Patrick throws his forearm over his eyes. “I’m not ready for children.” 

Hayley tells him, “No one said anything about you.” 

Patrick squints at her. “We should be roommates.” 

“Yeah,” Hayley agrees with an eye roll. “I’m sure that would go over well.” 

She falls asleep halfway through episode six of a twenty-minute television sitcom, curled into the back of Patrick’s couch, and Patrick pulls his duvet out of a packed box to cover her up before he collapses into the cushions next to her and passes out within seconds.

_March, Year VI_

Pete learns ( _Unfairly,_ he thinks) that Patrick has moved back to Boston through the grapevine. It starts with a photo posted online— Patrick plus mutual friends in a bar they used to frequent. Pete scrolls through the comments, a list of _so nice to see u!!_ and _We need to go out more often!_ He tells himself Patrick is just visiting, plans made at the wedding, his siblings (and Hayley) still live here, and that he’s not upset Patrick didn’t mention anything about being in town. 

Brendon invites him to a party hosted by a previous co-worker, where G introduces him to Andy with the explanation that they both know Patrick. G seems to think this is an excellent foundation for a friendship. Pete isn’t so sure. 

“Andy doesn’t drink either,” G also offers, and leaves them to talk about Pete’s experimental sobriety. 

“Oh yeah,” Andy says. “He’s good people. I really keep meaning to ask him if he wants to catch up sometime— with the move and new start-up and everything. How do you know each other?”

Pete’s stomach drops. “Not— that well,” Pete replies, which isn’t the answer to Andy’s question, but it produces the desired effect. Pete deliberately steers the conversation away from Patrick, why he stopped drinking, or how badly he wishes he could be drinking right now, and as it turns out, Andy is cool. He’s a music junkie and a testosterone-filled action movie aficionado, fit, and knows every up-and-coming health food restaurant within a fifty-mile radius. 

It’s longer than Pete has talked with a friendly stranger in years, but it gets late and the conversation starts to fade eventually. “Next time you’re looking for something to do, let me know. I’ve been meaning to try this new place in Harvard,” Andy says as he’s preparing to leave. 

“Yes, definitely,” Pete tells him with confidence. They exchange numbers. 

“I’ll try to get in touch with Patrick,” Andy offers. “Maybe we can all go if he’s free— anyway, I’m going to head out, nice to meet you.” 

“Yeah, nice to meet you too, man,” Pete says blankly, and watches Andy say goodbye to friends and leave the venue. 

Pete gets shitfaced. No one asks questions, G calls him an Uber past midnight, and Pete goes home to throw up alcohol alone. It’s strangely freeing.

On Monday night, wrapped up in each other on Pete’s couch, _Mad Men_ in the background, Mikey asks, “How was the party? Fun?” 

“Oh, it was good,” Pete lies, and that is that. 


	21. In which someone takes the blame for the Tokyo Drift.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.”_ — F. Scott Fitzgerald

_April, Year VI_

After Mikey’s revelation and the consequent argument about their divaricating expectations for their relationship, Pete promises both himself and Mikey that he’ll make more of an effort, though the rules of this are unclear. His undertakings must pay off in the end, something or someone will eventually reward him, whether it’s the immediate relief that Mikey is obviously more comfortable when his affections are reciprocated without question, or karmically, if his relationship with Mikey isn’t forever.

Tonight, he’s going to meet Mikey at some low-end bar on the Charles, close enough to Mikey’s apartment that he doesn’t have to stress about parking the car and has somewhere to crash when it gets too late to drive home. Pete showers and changes from one pair of work-appropriate dress pants to another before he leaves, and refreshes his email inbox on his phone as he brushes his teeth over the bathroom sink.

He watches the blue line cross the bottom of the screen, loading incoming emails, and the messages drop onto the screen with an accompanying vibration in rapid succession. Pete blinks and opens his eyes to read a subject line halfway down the screen: **Re: Your Submission for Publishing**. Pete blinks again. His fingers hover over the screen, breath held tight in his lungs, and then he swallows half the toothpaste in the back of his mouth and touches the link. Pete shoves the end of the toothbrush into his cheek and reads,

> _Dear Mr. Wentz,_
> 
> _We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been accepted for publication. […] We will reach out with additional information shortly; in the meantime, supplementary edits and comments are attached to the bottom of this letter, please incorporate promptly and return within two weeks. […]_
> 
> _We look forward to working with you,_

He wants to savor it, stay home and drink champagne alone, order delivery and sing under a searing shower stream, sprawl across the couch upside-down and call everyone he knows, revel in the congratulations and the casual fuck you’s. He wants to take it out to dinner, stuff it full of expensive wine and complimentary bread, and then take it home with him for a quick fuck after an hour of foreplay on the couch. He knows, realistically, that the chances of anyone reading it are slim, but in some strange way, this makes it all the more exciting; he imagines holding the first real physical copy and the knowledge that only four people have read it cover to cover. Pete smiles to himself and drools toothpaste on the tiled floor. It brings him back to the immediate future and he realizes, though he can’t be bothered with the feeling of resignation, that he has dinner plans for seven and it’s almost six-thirty and it will take at least half of an hour to drive to Mikey’s locale in the congestion of Friday night.

He postpones his celebrations, planning to decline Mikey’s inevitable sleepover offer to stop at the liquor store on the way home for a celebratory drink. The thought to invite Mikey to his personal party does not occur to him. Pete arrives to his date with Mikey fifteen minutes late and on a mental high, only to find Mikey cowering in the darkest corner, feeling dejected and expecting an explanation for Pete’s tardiness. Pete dismisses it quickly.

“There was traffic,” he explains, and leans across the table to land a kiss on Mikey’s forehead. He touches the back of Mikey’s hand where it’s folded over the top of a menu. “Did you get something to drink?”

Mikey stares at him over the table and ignores the inquisition. He grabs Pete’s hand in his and peels the menu open. The sheets of plastic separate with a cracking noise, and Mikey glances at it before he throws Pete a concerned look. “You’re in a good mood,” Mikey says.

“Yeah, I guess,” Pete replies. Mikey’s eyebrows fall and his lip twists, and Pete takes Mikey’s other hand and decides to save the book announcement for another night.

_May, Year VI_

On Thursday nights, Pete eats at Gabe’s house. It had been Tuesday nights for as long as he can remember but recently, Hayley and Erin have made a habit of watching _Grey’s Anatomy_ while wine-drunk on Tuesday evenings instead of Sunday night. The events had coincided exactly once and never again, because although Pete likes Hayley, it’s difficult to look into her deep glittering eyes when she knows all of his secrets by proxy and not feel uncomfortably vulnerable. She’d given him a lazy smile from her nest on the couch and, terrified, Pete had narrowly avoided blurting out, “How come no one told me that Patrick moved back?” and turned an atrocious shade of crimson instead.

He would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a little deluded about the whole situation: the change in his weekly dinner plans, Hayley and Gabe’s exchanged knowing glances and reticent smirks, Erin’s well-meaning preaching, and Patrick’s move, about which he has been absorbing information as it is accidentally revealed to him.

So far, he has collected or deduced the following information:

1\. Patrick moved back to Boston in the new year, and if Pete’s manic calculations are correct, it leaves three months of semi-blissful ignorance. He hasn’t been out much, a fact which he chooses to credit to a sixty-hour workweek and not Mikey’s antisocial tendencies, but he feels like they should have run into each other sooner.

2\. There’s a new job involved, or a new old job, or a old new job.

3\. It’s not about him. (“Self-absorbed, much?” Pete asks himself aloud in the shower.)

Why did everyone assume he knew? While draped over Gabe’s recliner on a previous Thursday night, Pete viciously vomits up his rational anger about the gatekept information in the aftermath of G’s party, much like he’d spat out his mixed emotions about seeing Patrick at the wedding (though that was almost a year ago now), and his exasperation with Mikey after Mikey had gotten upset about the wedding, and when Mikey had casually mentioned moving in together, and when Mikey—

It’s a tantrum really, and of sizable proportions, justified but wrongfully directed. Gabe tells him this, to which Pete replies with his logical conclusion, “You knew and didn’t tell me.” He struggles with keeping his voice level when an amalgamation of apprehension and the feeling of light betrayal burn in his stomach.

Gabe’s reply is a short and sincere, “I thought it was one of those things.”

“What things?”

“One of those things we aren’t talking about, like the pregnancy test in your bathroom trash two weeks before she broke—” Gabe is cut off as Pete lasers him with a scathing look.

On this particular Thursday night, Pete is quiet, reserved, and bristled. Mikey is having friends over to watch baseball, and Pete had refused to participate. There had been an argument when Mikey had first mentioned it and another while Pete was leaving Mikey’s apartment for Gabe’s house. Gabe tolerates twenty draining minutes of abnormal silence before, determined to make Pete talk, he prods, “What do you want for your birthday?”

“I don’t know,” Pete replies, indifferent. “Nothing big, just dinner out or something.” He shrugs and pretends not to see Gabe’s eyebrows fall, disappointed. Gabe wants the responsibility of planning an extensive party, a wild night out, or a big surprise.

“Who’re we inviting?” Gabe asks. _We_ , Gabe says, and Pete sighs and resigns himself to whatever bullshit plan Gabe comes up with. It’s certain to be something ridiculous, unexpected, and verging on inappropriate, but that is Gabe, with the additions of desperately in love with his wife and being a secret control freak.

“Uh— me, you, Mikey, and Erin.”

“Dude, that is a dinner party,” Gabe explains patiently. “We could do that tomorrow night.”

That’s the point, but Pete doesn’t have the energy to fight about it. He rolls his eyes and balls up his napkin in his hands, listening to Gabe outline the necessities of a birthday party with half an ear. He doesn’t point out that last year the only event he’d planned for his birthday was getting too high to speak with Gabe in the AMC Theater next to the Commons, and the year before that he went to the beach, alone. His birthday is no longer the occasion of the year. It’s healthier that way.

“Okay, then I want a fucking dinner party,” Pete bites, and reiterates, “Do not plan something big for me, Gabe, I’m fucking serious.” Gabe gives him finger guns instead of a verbal response, and Pete does not leave feeling reassured.

♥

Gabe stops Hayley in the doorway as she’s leaving the following week, appearing over Erin’s shoulder. “I need a huge favor,” Gabe says, already on the defensive. Hayley raises an eyebrow, and Gabe shoves his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I need you to convince Patrick to come to Pete’s birthday party.” Gabe makes a face like he expects Hayley to call him delusional.

Pete, Hayley knows, has explicitly requested that no one throw a party for his birthday, instead choosing to invite only his closest friends out for a casual, intimate dinner and maybe drinks. He still maintains that he’s avoiding drinking; Hayley is not so convinced. The reservation at the Loft, an upscale dig with a far-reaching wine menu, has already been made. She’s allowed one guest, per Erin, and has no one to bring.

Hayley considers the request. Her heart flutters, titillated, but she holds the collected exterior steadfast. For once, she’s unable to conjecture as to whether Patrick would accept the invitation from anyone other than Pete himself, but— it’s a strangely good idea, and worlds better than her own, which was to egg Patrick into texting an ex with no warning. “You don’t think Pete will be mad?”

“Probably not,” Gabe says, and adds, “Please? I can’t deal with this anymore,” and Hayley offers a sympathetic laugh.

She vows not to make promises she can’t deliver. “I can try,” she offers, still concealing her excitement. “I don’t know if he’s going to show up without a personal invite.” 

“Just lie,” Gabe oozes. “It’s a surprise party and I’m inviting him. I mean, it is a surprise.”

A grin escapes her. She’s delighted with the moral ambiguity of the request, the dilemma of means at odds with intent. Hayley leaves Gabe and Erin’s JP house with an air of importance; she is a woman on a mission.

She relays to Patrick later (late) that night, “I need to ask you two things— one, can we please move our working dinner to another night? I need feminine energy, I want to hang out with Erin and drink and it sucks on Tuesdays.”

“Sure.” Patrick stabs at the wilting salad he’d purchased on the way home for dinner and thinks, resigned, that he will inevitably end up scarfing down what is left of the bag of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in his cabinets before bed. He pushes the most dressing-drenched bits of lettuce to the edge of his plate and forces himself to come up with an alternative for their Thursday night plans. He proposes Friday evenings, a couple of hours of work followed by a night out, though they both concede that is more likely that they will finish the day having dinner in and watching a trashy movie. “What’s the second thing?”

Hayley takes a deep inhale, audible through the phone. “Don’t get mad,” she says sharply.

He stands from his kitchen table to toss out the rest of his dinner and wash dishes, his phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder. “I won’t get mad.”

“I’m serious,” she insists. “Say you won’t get mad.”

“I won’t be mad. Just tell me.”

“Gabe’s having a dinner for Pete’s birthday— he wants you to come.” She leaves it open-ended, for Patrick to surmise if it’s Gabe or Pete that wants him to come, and withholds the information that Patrick’s invitation will be a complete surprise, but adds, “Erin’s coming, too, and she said I could bring a date.”

Patrick’s stomach dives to his knees. “No.”

Hayley is silent on the phone. Patrick’s heart pounds behind his left lung hard enough to render it useless. His numb fingers relinquish the contents of his hand too easily; Patrick drops the remains of his salad and his metal fork into the garbage can without thinking. No drink he can dream up would be enough to placate his anxiety to the point of marching into Pete’s birthday party without a personal invite— or with a personal invite, for that matter. It must be a set-up or an excuse for public humiliation.

“Why not? You got an invite.”

Patrick swallows the building distrust at the back of his throat and squeaks, “From who?”

Hayley grins to herself. “They both do? I saw Gabe on Tuesday and he said it sucks you haven’t seen each other in forever.” 

It all makes more sense with Gabe as the perpetrator, confirming Patrick’s suspicion that the invite can’t be more than a crude jab at Patrick’s social inadequacies, like telling the weird kid that a popular girl has a crush on him in middle school. Patrick makes an attempt at a rude scoffing noise but his throat is thick and the noise comes out as a frightened peep. “Pete doesn’t want me at his birthday party.”

“Would I lie to you?” Hayley demands. Patrick is quiet, in the midst of a panicked mental spiral. “Why won’t you come? We want you to come, _I_ want you to come,” Hayley whines, and withstands another pregnant moment before she prompts, concerned that Patrick might have passed out from sheer embarrassment, “Patrick?”

Patrick asks blankly, “Are you going?”

Hayley replies, “Only if you do.”

His voice is deadpan, but internally, Patrick is a swirling imbroglio of mixed emotions. His head has been spinning with foreboding and delusions intertwined since Hayley spoke the words _Pete_ and _wants you_ in close proximity to each other and he’s itchy under his skin, an undercurrent of doubt and sexual frustration that makes the thin hair up both his arms stand on end and leaves him feeling cold and dry. Patrick allows, “I’ll have to think about it,” and Hayley knows this is as good as yes.

♥

After a spring dedicated to self-betterment, Patrick promises himself that if he can flip the project, earning another six months, he’ll make another attempt at quitting cigarettes, and by the end of May, Patrick flips the project with some lucky investment choices and an early-stage funding grant application that had appeared at just the right time. It’s truly a matter of being in the right place at the right time, and after settling into the new office routine, the new commute, the additional management responsibilities, and reacclimatizing himself to having co-ops in office, Patrick is finally feeling as if he’s been in the right place all along— it was the timing that screwed him over.

Victoria makes plans for him to visit New York City during the upcoming fall, and Patrick spends his weeknight evening searching online for programs on how to approach quitting. They all seem like Hell, but Patrick chooses the most elementary and adds it to the calendar on his phone, admitting that his expectations for himself are low. He fails day one, sitting on his front steps and talking to William over the phone about the temerity of Gabe’s invitation. He rests his elbow on his thigh and his leg shakes with nerves.

“I’ve changed my mind,” William decides aloud. “Soulmates are real.”

_June, Year VI_

Patrick leaves the office for Pete’s birthday dinner fifteen minutes late. He had committed himself to finishing one item on his to-do list by the end of the day, and then there had been an awkward conversation about a lagging deadline with a co-op and a slipped number in the budget, and when Patrick finally steps onto the elevator to the ground floor, pulls his phone out of his pocket to text Hayley that he’s on his way, and realizes that the elevator is going up instead of descending into the office lobby, it only contributes to the sinking feeling that comes with being late. He lets everyone in the elevator off at the top and texts Hayley, _Im going to be a few minutes late,_ on the way back down.

She texts back a simple thumbs-up, and while Patrick impatiently rides the subway to Columbus Park, sends, _We’re eating outside._

He smokes a cigarette while walking from the Columbus Park station to the Loft restaurant, despite his plan to quit, and rehearses the painfully awkward moment when he first makes eye contact with Pete after showing up at Pete’s birthday party unannounced, just like he’s been rehearsing the moment in the mirror every night in the past week. _It’s not much, but—_ Patrick recites saying, accompanied by a clumsy smile, and practices handing over the Jaho gift card he’d bought with his head pounding earlier in the week, fingers crossed in his pockets and praying that Pete doesn’t walk in at this exact moment, since he’d had no excuse to be in the South End and was desperate to avoid running into Pete prior to the birthday party. He’d thought about buying a card to go with it but couldn’t think of what to write in it that wouldn’t come off as too befitting, too forward, or too intimate. _I tried not to like you like I do._

All his method acting is for naught, though, because when Hayley waves at him from their table and Patrick catches a glimpse of Pete, casually-dressed and in the midst of explaining some concept to someone across the table, all he can do is stare. His options are few— either summon the audacity to walk over to the table and introduce himself, or slowly back out of the array of tables and sprint towards the closest bus towards home. If the impending cardiac arrest from the first option doesn’t kill him, Hayley surely will if he chooses the latter.

His feet are cold with adrenaline, his mouth feels like he’s vomited up a small dead animal. If his hands sweat any more, there will be rivulets of sweat in the creases of his palms. Patrick feels physically repulsed by the aura of the table, but Hayley waves him over a second time, mouthing an invitation, and fingering the cardstock envelope housing the gift card in his pocket, Patrick drags himself to the corner table and says, like one might officiate their own funeral, “Hey.”

Between Mikey and Pete, Mikey appears much more surprised. Pete just looks— nervous, mapping the closest emergency exit, experiencing the same bubbling anxiety in the pit of his stomach as Patrick is, and Patrick feels a brief pang of solidarity. Pete’s eyebrows drop in an obvious display of confusion. It is clear he has yet to figure out the game being played; Gabe touches his arm for reassurance, and Pete seems to shake himself from a stunned trance.

It’s Gabe’s doing, Pete now knows, subconsciously. With Patrick, it is always Gabe’s doing, and when Pete’s eyes flicker to Gabe’s face beside him, almost unnoticeable, Gabe is sitting back in his chair, legs crossed and his forearms resting on the arms of the chair, hands clasped together in his lap. His eyes are hidden by dark sunglasses but the set jaw and subtle head tilt reveal his self-satisfaction, and Pete could choke him. It is the weirdest cocktail of emotions that Pete has ever felt churning in his stomach, furious at Gabe for playing God and halfway between overwhelmed and overjoyed with Patrick’s presence. He stares at Patrick, watching the swirling mess of excitement or panic within Patrick’s irises, and he has to say something, so Pete replies, “Hey. What are you doing here?”

Patrick looks around the table at his collection of friends and feels for a moment his face grow hot and the burgeoning urge to burst into tears, especially as Mikey drops his face into his hands and tries to play it off as fixing his hair. Pete awkwardly stands from the table, and from behind him, Hayley throws Patrick an exaggerated wink.

“I got an invite,” Patrick announces. He allows a small nervous smile.

“Oh,” Pete says. His guests are ogling at him. “Sit down, then.”

As much as Pete hates him, Gabe got it right, a low-stakes, public reintroduction surrounded by friends. Running into each other alone would have been simply too much, an awkward, unproductive scene likely resulting in Pete hoping for a brain aneurism in his car and Patrick resolving never to leave the house again with Hayley as his witness. Running into each other alone would have been simply too much, an awkward, unproductive scene likely resulting in Pete hoping for a brain aneurism in his car and Patrick resolving never to leave the house again with Hayley as his witness. Consciously or subconsciously, they’d postponed the inevitable conversation long enough that it became an impossibility without intervention. Patrick had procrastinated telling Pete he’d moved back until it seemed unreasonable to do so, and Pete had avoided texting Patrick after the party at G’s, confident that Patrick’s lack of communication communicated perfectly well that Patrick was no longer interested in being friends, or more than friends, or even casual acquaintances.

“Yeah, I will,” Patrick breathes, his heart rate still threatening to crack ribs. “Thanks.” Patrick slides into a chair between Hayley and Erin, gives Mikey a noncommittal nod and wave combination, and leans over the table to tell Gabe, “Thanks for the invite.”

Gabe hands him a menu instead of acknowledging the thank you. “Get whatever you want, I’m paying.”

Erin slides the wine list across the table as Patrick takes the menu from Gabe’s hands. Patrick scans the table, Pete and all of his guests sit with a glass of wine, but Patrick refuses Erin’s offer quietly, saying, “Oh, thanks, but I probably shouldn’t drink.” Pete glances at him sideways. Patrick studies his menu, pretending not to notice.

Hayley kicks him lightly under the table and tilts her head in Pete’s direction. Her face threatens a smile, the twitch of one cheek and a raised eyebrow. Patrick leans in to let Hayley whisper to him. “Talk after dinner, yeah?” she says, and Patrick bristles, now overly aware of Mikey’s poorly concealed distaste and Hayley’s total inability to whisper.

Dinner itself is uneventful, but Patrick realizes as Gabe pays the cheque and Mikey perches at the edge of his chair, desperate to leave, that the interval of time acceptable to approach being friends is quickly slipping through his fingers. Patrick stands from the table with the rest of his friends and stuffs his hands in his pockets, awaiting a free moment to ask if Pete wants to talk.

Pete’s car is parked on the street. Patrick holds back a moment, absorbing Hayley’s reassurance and watching Pete exchange goodbyes with Gabe and Erin, the way Mikey lingers stand-offishly behind Pete’s hip. Mikey offers each guest a small smile and a handshake after a forced second introduction, and it suddenly dawns on Patrick that Pete has never wanted to show Mikey off to his friends, introduce Mikey as his boyfriend to strangers, or bring Mikey home to meet his mother. Mikey, Patrick thinks with some contempt, has appeared no more than miserable throughout dinner and plays the roles of both jealous and disinterested boyfriend with equal talent. Pete wraps a forearm around Mikey’s shoulders and it slides into the small of Mikey’s back as Pete waves a final goodbye to Erin. Patrick throws a pointed glance in Hayley’s direction.

Leaning against the fence separating the dining tables from the sidewalk, she winks and offers with an encouraging smile, “I’ll wait up for you.”

Patrick nods and with that, nervously approaches Pete’s car. It takes six steps (Patrick counts) and Patrick touches the back of Pete’s arm like it’s going to burn his fingers. “Hey, sorry,” he tries when Pete turns to face him, looking apprehensive. “Can I— can we talk for just a second?”

“Yeah,” Pete replies. He says to Mikey, “Hold on, it’ll be a minute,” and Patrick makes Mikey no promises, still unsure what he’s supposed to say in this scenario, but from the distrustful look Mikey gives him when Pete hands over the car keys, he’s certain that the conversation cannot last more than a few moments without consequences.

Patrick scuffs the toe of his shoe on the sidewalk. His hand closes around the gift card in his pocket. “Listen, I know that you didn’t invite me, but—”

Mikey watches them from the sidewalk, an uncomfortable distance away. He leans against Pete’s car and glances up at them from his phone every few seconds, and Patrick tries very hard not to look at him over Pete’s shoulder. Pete’s back to Mikey, it’s enough to hide the spread of Pete’s wide grin, though it’s blinding to Patrick in the middle of the transition from dusk to dark. Even if Patrick wanted to conceal it, he couldn’t, the emotionally-charged smile that appears across Patrick’s face in return cannot be stifled. Patrick inhales courage and finishes, “But I had a good time— and I’m sorry. Can we— do you want to get a coffee sometime?”

“Yes,” Pete chirps, and up-close, Patrick notices Pete’s hollowed under-eyes for the first time that evening. “I would like that,” Pete says as a means of being reassuring. “You can text me, but— oh, I, um— I got a new number, actually, because a client got my personal number and it was a whole mess.” Patrick extricates his phone and the gift card from his back pocket as Pete speaks, and Pete reaches for Patrick’s phone with shaking hands. “I’ll just text myself?”

Patrick agrees too quickly to hide his excitement. He waits in silence for Pete to put his number in the phone, watching Pete’s thumbs fumble with the tiny screen and pretending that Pete’s hands, almost comically large for the rest of his body, don’t make regular appearances in his most appealing daydreams. Pete hands him the phone, and Patrick presents him with the minimal gift. He says, “I don’t want to keep you, but I did get you this. I know it’s not much, but—”

Pete laughs. The look on Pete’s face is like no expression Patrick has ever seen but his body prickles, a tell-tale sign that he’s concealing some strong emotion. He raises his eyebrows and turns the cardboard envelope over in his hands. “No, it’s— thank you.” He looks up at Patrick from behind his eyelashes, still admiring the gift, and proposes, “Actually, there’s this new thing at Jaho— Afterhours? It’s like a coffee and wine bar after closing on Fridays.”

Still wearing the stupid blissful half-smile, Patrick raises one eyebrow. “Coffee and wine?”

Pete’s laugh turns nervous. “It might be either, or, I don’t— I’m not sure. I’ve never been.”

“No,” Patrick corrects himself. “That sounds good.” He catches Mikey’s sharp gaze over Pete’s shoulder by mistake and feeling his time running out, prepares to make his excuse to leave. He touches Pete’s elbow covered by a sweatshirt and feels his face fall with the disappointment of leaving. “Fridays? I’ll text you.”

Pete nods and politely (awkwardly) thanks Patrick for coming before he turns to meet Mikey at the car. He waves and performs a graceless half-jog across the sidewalk. Patrick watches Mikey wordlessly return the keys before he gives a small smile visible to no one but himself and heads for home.

♥

Pete slides into the driver’s seat and turns the keys in the ignition. Mikey sits stiffly beside him, and Pete chooses to ignore Mikey’s body twisted slightly towards the window, the planned side-eye, and the otherwise blank stare. Pete pulls his sweatshirt over his head and tosses it into the seat behind him. Mikey continues to stare at the dashboard, and after clearing his throat, Pete asks, “Are we hanging out for the rest of the night? My place or yours?”

Mikey takes a long time to decide. “Can you just take me home tonight?” he asks, sounding exhausted. “We can do something later in the week instead.”

“Yeah. I just can’t do Thursday, or Friday now because I’m going to Jaho with Patrick on Friday—”

Mikey interrupts, “So you have a date now?”

Pete attempts a fast right turn at the end of the street. A car honks and Pete slams his foot on the brake, leaving Mikey scrambling and Pete braced against the steering wheel. “Can we not argue about this on my birthday? That’s all I’m asking, just save it for tomorrow,” Pete pleads. Mikey doesn’t reply, and Pete pulls out in front of the honking car on the street and protests, “I didn’t invite him.”

“I know you didn’t,” Mikey discloses. “Who did?”

“I don’t know, Hayley or Gabe? It was probably Gabe.”

“It was Hayley,” Mikey bites, as if he knows something Pete doesn’t, and rolls his eyes behind closed eyelids. “She’s always in the middle of you guys’ relationship.”

Pete laughs at this. “Like it or not, Hayley has always been in the middle of that relationship. Patrick tells her everything.”

“That doesn’t bother you?

Pete neglects to point out that he’s divulged to Gabe the secrets of nearly every fight, surprise, or sexual escapade he’s had with Mikey. He’s told Gabe that dating (or not dating, whatever they’re doing now) Mikey feels like dragging an unwilling child around the city by the elbow, and Gabe tells him in return that he only dates children, he should start dating men. Pete scratches at his eyebrow, remembers that conversation with Gabe, and recalls with new insight that Gabe is filled with infinite wisdom, though it only comes at inopportune times. “Not really,” Pete tells Mikey.

Mikey rolls his eyes and sinks into his seat, looking defeated. “It was just a little awkward, that’s all.”

“Awkward for who?” Pete finally snaps. It might be unfair, the denial that the dinner had hosted some initial awkwardness for everyone involved, but it was his birthday that Gabe (or Hayley) had taken a gamble on ruining, so shouldn’t Mikey be a little more sympathetic? Pete anticipates the snotty rebuttal, but Mikey turns back to the window and stares at people walking on the sidewalk, chewing on his lip and looking beyond washed-out. “I’m sorry,” Pete concedes. “I didn’t know.”

Mikey’s conservative attitude is unrelenting on the ride to his apartment. He keeps the discussion between them to a minimum and sits stone-still, but his aura oozes restlessness and a cold impatience. He reaches urgently for the door handle when Pete pulls to the curb outside of his apartment and gives Pete a tight smile as he collects his wallet and coat from the floor of the car. “Thanks for driving me home,” Mikey says, “And I’m sorry I ruined your birthday.”

“I had a good time at my birthday, actually,” Pete objects. He thinks, self-satisfied, of Patrick’s subdued smile in contrast with Mikey’s face of obvious distaste over the dinner table, and wonders if the two were related. It’s too much of a boost for his ego; Pete’s chest throbs with a passing bout of vanity. “I’m sorry you didn’t.”

Mikey’s fingers twist around the handle of the car door in the same way that his mouth twists around the obscenity stored beneath his tongue. He blinks, concealing austere eyes that are usually expressionless for less than a moment, and swallows. Pete tells him, “Good night,” a ceremonious offering, and Mikey leans across the front seat to wrap Pete in a polite hug and exchange a prudish kiss before he pops the latch on the car door and disappears inside.

♥

Determined to both relax for the night and beat an unbearable cigarette craving, Patrick takes a blistering shower and pours himself a glass of wine with trembling hands as soon as he gets home. He checks his phone for the time and thinking that it’s far too late for William to be awake still, he pads to the couch and takes a sip from his glass before he sets it on the coffee table. Patrick leans into the arm of the couch, crosses one sweatpant-clad ankle over the other, and types out a message to William anyway.

_Party was ok. His boyfriend hates me_

_We made plans to go out on Friday night kind of. Coffee. Want to talk before then??_

He misses William more than he had anticipated leaving, but it’s too late to spiral on this thought; he’s already being absorbed by the couch and his head is already syrupy, and besides, he’s not desperate, really. He has friends and a refreshing change in his career and he’ll return to the Boston dating scene when the time is right, when he has more free time. He reads over his previous tests and after deciding they sound self-centered, he shares his final thoughts before turning off his phone for the night: _Going to bed soon just keeping you updated. Miss you miss your cigarettes :(_

William returns the call during Patrick’s commute the following morning. Patrick leans into his leather seat, void of any other passengers, of the commuter rail and shoves his earbuds further into his ears to hear William’s voice over the low grumble and skipping wheels of the train. William asks, making conversation though Patrick had told him last night, “How was the birthday party?”

“Alright.” Patrick studies his fingers and tries to speak quietly to avoid the nasty looks from other commuters. “We made plans to go to a coffee night at this local place sometime soon.”

“You and Pete did.”

“Yeah,” Patrick answers. He anticipates William’s next question. “We’re going to go check out the after-hours at this coffee shop.”

William’s raised eyebrow is audible when he prods, “Is it a date?”

“No. We’re just catching up, I think.”

“Are you excited?”

“No,” Patrick replies, and smiles to himself. William has made the list of people to be perfectly personally honest with, but he lies to make sure he still can, that he still has the talent. “I’m just nervous. I fucked over my plan and had a cigarette before the party but before that I hadn’t had a cigarette in, like, forever. I think I’m dying.”

William exhales a laugh, reminding Patrick of morning-afters and glasses of wine in dimly-lit restaurants. “How long is forever?”

Patrick hums, thinking. “Three days,” he finally replies. William laughs at this, a real, bubbly charming laugh, and Patrick throws his palm over his mouth to keep from following suit. His phone buzzes in his hand and Patrick peers at the unknown number that floats at the top of the screen. The message beneath it reads, _still want to check out Friday nights for coffee? this week next week etc??_

The second question mark adds a sense of urgency that Patrick secretly revels in. He chews on his thumbnail, absently smiling to himself, and overthinks the reply before he decides to keep it simple. He sends, _I can do this week,_ tells William, “Hey, I’ve got to go. I’m almost at work,” and drops his phone into the top of his bag, vowing not to peek at it until lunch.

Patrick drowns in enough work Friday afternoon to forget about his not-date completely. He shuffles through papers and prints on the surface of his desk and glances up at the clock, surprised when it informs him that it’s past four. Pulled back into reality, he mumbles an, “Oh, shit,” to himself and deposits half of the papers into a drawer in his desk and slips the others into his bag.

He’s late to get home but early for the next train, and waiting on the platform, Patrick takes a remedial breath for the first time all day and the anxieties pour in like water through the floodgates. It’s the timing first, adding the commute to the time it will take him to shower and shave, then take the Green line, unreliable at best, to Jaho. Patrick panics at the thought that Pete won’t show and leave Patrick waiting in line in Jaho like he’d left Pete in Boston, or maybe Pete will make an appearance just to call him on his bullshit, create a maddening display of public vulnerability brutally contrasting every time they’d pretended they had no obligation to each other, and Patrick will go home alone and regretting an overwhelming number of his life decisions. 

He’s dramatizing, of course, but a disappointed Patrick would understand either scenario, thinking that whatever bad cards Pete has to play, Patrick has played much worse. Hayley’s words of advice ring in his ears. _Have zero expectations,_ she’d said, and it’s good advice, a bit he would follow if he’d ever recovered from breaking his own heart.

They’d talked about the night before and Patrick hadn’t planned to call her before dinner, but his phone vibrates in his back pocket and Patrick jumps. He answers the call and Hayley says immediately, “Hey.” It sounds despondent and wet, like she’s spent some time crying. “Are you off of work yet?” 

Patrick replies, “I just left.” She makes a small noise, probably a sniffle, and Patrick frowns and asks gently, “Are you okay?” 

Hayley is silent for a long moment before she lets out a long sigh and mumbles, “No.” She pauses long enough that Patrick starts to prompt her and reveals, “I think we broke up. I don’t know what happened.”

Somewhere, in the deep viscera of his thoughts, he’d known it was coming, Hayley’s breakup. There was her calculated distrust when the situation with William grew serious, though Patrick had dismissed this as Hayley being maternal and four-thousand miles away, the kiss, and her easy concession that nothing was exactly how she wanted, in the wake of Patrick’s major steps into adulthood. He could have predicted the time and the position of the planets if given any more insight.

Patrick isn’t sure if he should congratulate or apologize to her. He narrowly avoids saying _fuck him,_ standing at the train station to await his ride home, and says instead, “Hayley, I’m sorry.” He abandons his evening plans with Pete right then with an internal frustrated noise, mourning the loss of the anxious flutter in his stomach, his daydream of lying across Pete’s chest whilst too high to speak, recalling the constant low-level anxiety that comes from being too close to a crush. “Do you want to come over? We can get food, you can crash on the couch.”

Hayley sniffles into the phone. “You’re not doing anything tonight, right? You don’t have to cancel your plans for me.”

“No,” Patrick tells her. “I’m not doing anything.”

Pete sounds doubting instead of disappointed when Patrick reluctantly calls to cancel, ignoring the way his stomach had dropped when Patrick’s name had appeared across his phone screen and dropped even further as Patrick informs him nervously, “Listen, I hate to do this but I have to cancel for tonight. Hayley and her boyfriend broke up, and— I’m really sorry. Can we just get coffee or something this weekend”

Pete throws his bag over his shoulder, and truthfully, he’s unsure if Patrick is lying or not. His stomach twists. “Um,” Pete says dumbly. “Let’s just reschedule for Jaho next week. I have to keep my weekends open for time to spend with Mikey.” He thinks after saying it that the last bit of information was irrelevant.

“I’m sorry. I swear I’m not— I’m not bailing on you.”

“Yeah,” Pete says, mentally committing himself to a night in with Mikey. It will be relaxing; they can order delivery and finish _Mad Men_ and Mikey will probably go home before ten. It falls short of the excitement of seeing Patrick. “Tell Hayley I’m sorry.” Pete winces as his endless social faux pas and finishes blindly, “I’ll see you next week.”

Hayley stands on his doorstep with a paper bag of food when Patrick gets home. She shivers even in the humid June night, and Patrick looks her over just long enough to take in the mascara-stained eyelids and the sweatpants before he pulls her inside and into a soul-healing, clinging hug.

“I said Erin and Gabe actually like each other,” Hayley says, and, “I told him I might quit and go back to school,” and, “It’s just that I’m craving stability right now and I’m not getting it from him.”

They eat Thai food on the couch and watch _Legally Blonde,_ sizing each other up on opposite sides of the carpet. Patrick makes all the right comments, validates all of Hayley’s grievances, and tries desperately to forget about Pete Wentz an uncountable number of times— to say he is successful is to delude himself.

She says, “I need someone less distant, like, it wouldn’t kill you to act like you like me,” and, “I just think living in one place his whole life severely limits his worldview,” and finally, “Thanks for letting me crash on the couch for tonight. I’m exhausted.”

“I’m too tired to sleep,” Patrick explains. He stays up far too late watching _That 70’s Show_ , and Hayley falls asleep with her face on his thigh, dead to the endless number of bitter unread messages on her phone and the rest of the world.

♥

The following Friday, Pete blends into a line of college students in their last years and feels his heart pound under his shirt. He’d gotten here much too early, almost half an hour before they’d agreed to meet up. This is for two reasons, the first being that the tiny coffee shop is only two blocks from his apartment and the second being that he’d wanted to be there before Patrick, though this makes him feel guilty, like he’s beating Patrick at his own game by making him wait; he’s been the one waiting for Patrick to catch up, make a decision, or come to a profound realization months too late in days past. The line moves quickly while he’s distracted.

When the barista asks for his order, Pete decides he’ll order for both of them, realizes he has no idea what Patrick will want, and orders his own drink, all in ten seconds or less. Flustered, he hopes while handing cash over the counter that she won’t notice the heat in his face or how awkwardly he’d stumbled through the coffee order. He mumbles a thank you and goes to sit in the corner of the café alone.

The coffee shop is busier than usual, though it’s always busy, a bustle of older couples and contrasting college students in summer classes grouped in pairs or trios. It’s warm inside and outside but Pete’s hands are cold from nerves and the coffee in his hands. The coffee feels good but doesn’t taste like he remembers— it’s darker, more bitter, but Pete drinks it anyway, feeling emotionally drained and unwilling to relinquish his possession of the table. Minutes creep by and Pete taps his feet under the table, spins his half-empty coffee in his hands, and considers texting Patrick that he got a table. He decides not to, wondering if it would make him look overeager. Someone touches his shoulder, and Pete jumps.

“Sorry to bother you,” a college-aged kid says. He points to the girl behind him. “We were wondering if you would switch tables with us so we could sit together, since you’re sitting alone—”

Pete feels his face burn. “I’m waiting for someone, I’m sorry.” It’s getting close to ten and Pete is starting to worry unfairly that Patrick won’t show, and then, like clockwork, Pete’s phone buzzes and lights up simultaneously.

_Green line. Be there in ten minutes._

The familiarity hits him hard, pummeling at his chest, and Pete swallows thickly around his coffee. He’s a victim of his own theatrics and Patrick is texting him about the inconveniences of the Green line like they’d never been apart. Patrick has left him feeling socially removed, envious, and confused, but never let down; however, letting himself down is a feat at which Pete has become exceptionally good. 

_ok,_ Pete sends in reply. _can I order something for you?_

_Sure, hot regular,_ and then like an afterthought, _Cant wait to catch up_

Pete gets back in line and stands there for only a minute before a different someone touches his arm, and it burns. His stomach seizes like he’s going to vomit, anticipating how much it will hurt to turn around. A public birthday dinner with friends is one thing, seeing Patrick alone is another entirely.

“Hey,” Patrick says, voice vibrating dangerously in Patrick’s skull until he feels deliciously explosive. Patrick’s hands are cold but could still leave blisters where his fingers are wrapped gently around Pete’s elbow, and Pete whips around expecting to meet grey eyes and soft cheeks and a glint of white teeth and to feel faint, but Patrick isn’t smiling. He looks uneasy, like he’s waiting for Pete to snatch his arm away and run. Patrick tries, “I like the haircut?” 

Pete’s hair is longer now, shaggy on the top so that it creates a perfect middle-part with a shake of the head. It looks good; Patrick wants to hold the strands between his knuckles. He forces himself to smile instead of raking his eyes over Pete’s body, and then Pete grins, exposing bright white teeth, and Patrick can’t help himself from staring at Pete’s mouth when his limbic system says, _oh my God,_ and then, _I hate this,_ and then _I want you to suck me off, or fuck me, whatever,_ before the rest of his brain catches up and he’s back in line at Jaho. Pete is halfway through preaching his usual spiel about the Green line, and Patrick pretends to listen and hums agreeably, but instead he’s drowning in a new-found sense of nostalgic normalcy— standing in line for something they both know is just foreplay for Patrick stripping out of his shirt in Pete’s bedroom while Pete bites the back of his neck and grinds his heavy cock into the dimples on Patrick’s lower back. It’s a dangerous thought for a coffee shop.

Patrick produces a credit card to pay for his drink and Pete’s second coffee before Pete can dig anything out of his wallet. “It’s not mine,” Patrick says when Pete tries to give him a clump of wrinkled bills. “Company card.” 

“So you just charge all of your personal transactions to the company card now?” Pete grins and takes a sip of his coffee. This one tastes infinitely better. 

“Yep.” Patrick fits the card back into his wallet and grabs his drink off the counter. “Where were we sitting?” 

Pete steers him through the hedge maze of tables and chairs, cautious of the way he wants to press his forearm to the small of Patrick’s back. He’s rambling, like he always does when he’s nervous, and determined to take the attention off of himself, Pete sits into a leather chair and asks bluntly, “What are you doing for work?” 

It catches Patrick by surprise, wondering how much Pete has missed out on. Everything, it seems, and Patrick stutters through an answer. “We’re trying to get the magazine started here,” he says. “It’s a lot, I mean— it’s a ton of work that I’m doing myself and everything’s up in the air but if it all works out then I’ll get to be in Italy every once in a while, so— it works out. It’s a lot of the same stuff, which I like, actually. It’s better to have one thing stay the same.” 

It’s true, even if Pete looks unsure. Little else feels the same, providing the day-to-day stability that an office job in an obsolete media does. There’s Hayley, but many of his other friends have grown and grown apart and the streets look the same but feel different every day, in the same way that Pete looks familiar or feels so different— or feels exactly the same, Patrick isn’t sure of himself. 

Patrick sips out of the top of his coffee cup and swallows the face he makes when he burns the roof of his mouth. “There’s conditions,” he says. 

Pete echoes, “Conditions.” 

“Yeah, conditions, but not really more work,” Patrick replies, fully aware that he’s bordering on incoherency. “It’s just different.” 

Pete laughs. “More hours on the clock.”

“Maybe.” Patrick shrugs. “I get to clock out at the end of the day, though. I’m not constantly on call.” 

“Sure.” Pete’s smile is teasing.

“I’m not going to get too invested or work myself to death.” 

“You’ve said,” Pete answers, trite. He is contented in a way that Patrick can’t place. He has Mikey, a stable and gratifying career, and has mentioned getting a dog multiple times. From the outside, Pete appears to have grown into his niche during Patrick’s absence, and Patrick is happy for him, honestly. It’s only a friendly reminder that Pete has matured in two years. Patrick thinks he might personally be stuck in a time loop. 

Patrick curls his fingers around his coffee cup and leans across the table. Pete leans towards him, purely instinctual, and wrinkles his nose, talking about some client he brutally dislikes and a crude outline of the situation with the client and his personal phone number, and Patrick feels the apprehension dissolve in his stomach, replaced by a new feeling of butterflies. _This is easy,_ Patrick thinks. Pete gestures at him and Patrick feels his mouth curl into a small smile. _You can do this,_ and the rest of the conversation really is easy. 

“So I told you I submitted the book,” Pete says eventually. The look Patrick gives him is apprehensive, and Pete watches him swallow the comment and prods, “It’s okay, you can say it.” 

Patrick waits for Pete to mime that he’s serious, he doesn’t mind the minor insult that follows. “You’re still working on that?” 

Pete spins the cup in his hands and gives Patrick a look across the table. “Well, I got an offer on it.” 

Patrick gapes at him. “Seriously? That’s awesome! When?” 

“I don’t know,” Pete answers, a career-expert at downplaying the situation. “Earlier in the summer. I’m freaking out about it, honestly.” Patrick scrutinizes him with equal parts sympathy and skepticism, and Pete spills the rest of his grievances without thinking. “I told my mom. I told Gabe, and I told some other people— haven’t told Mikey, though, it’s just been weird since he asked if I wanted to move in together.”

It’s too personal for the circumstances, and Patrick lowers his eyebrows. Pete shrugs it off and laughs awkwardly, and Patrick says, “Right.” He thinks of William, the personal offer, and the lack of a conversation that followed. “You’ll make it work."

“No,” Pete replies quickly. “It was weird, the whole thing is just a bit— weird.” 

A crease forms between Patrick’s eyebrows. He leans further across the table, balanced on his elbows. “If it’s that weird,” Patrick starts gently, “Why don’t you just break up?” It’s too forward, inserting himself into a scenario he knows nothing about and he’s certainly not qualified to give anyone advice, but Pete smiles, rolls his eyes, and refuses to meet Patrick’s gaze, and Patrick feels like he’s aimed and hit the matter. 

Pete makes a noise. It’s the first time Patrick has seen him unsure of something in their brief interaction, and Pete recalls Mikey’s snide comment about Hayley’s involvement in the relationship between he and Patrick and can’t help the pained smile that appears across the lower half of his face. Pete carefully sets his coffee down on the table and stiffens defensively.  “Probably because I work with his brother,” Pete says. Patrick snorts and coffee nearly projects out his nose. “No, really, it’s a whole thing.”

“What about the part where you’re supposed to keep your personal and professional life separate?” 

Pete’s exaggerated grin relaxes, fading into a wistful expression. “Yeah, so much for that, I guess. He’s not always like that, though, like he was at my birthday.” Patrick is quiet, twisting his hand around his paper cup, and Pete takes a breath and confesses, “I think it’s nice that you canceled your plans to hang out with Hayley after she broke up with her boyfriend, even if you canceled on me.” 

_We can hang out when you break up with your boyfriend,_ Patrick’s useless mind supplies. “She was really upset about it,” Patrick says instead. “It’s what you do,” and Pete gives him a knowing grin. 

It gets late, as it does, and they leave after most of the other customers have already left, chatty and caffeinated. Patrick tosses the cold dregs of his coffee into the recycling by the door and plans to leave with an awkward sideways hug and some vague promise of future plans. 

“Hey,” Pete asks, still in the sideways hug. “Do you have a ride home? It’s kind of a trek down here from Cambridge.” 

Patrick doesn’t bother to tell Pete he lives in Chelsea now, not Cambridge. It’s irrelevant because he has enough sense to know he can’t handle being in the same car as Pete stuck in Friday night traffic from Columbus Avenue to Route 1. “I might go to Hayley’s,” he replies easily. 

The look Pete gives him is an accusation of defamation. “But I didn’t get to see the new house.” 

Patrick disentangles himself from Pete’s embrace. “We can do a movie sometime,” he suggests, “Or, wait, come get high with me. No one ever gets high with me anymore.”

Pete pretends to consider it for a moment, flipping his wallet and phone back in forth in his hands and nodding. “I’ll think about it,” he says, and laughs when Patrick grins. “What movie are you proposing?”

“Whatever you want. I’ve taken up an interest in classic horror lately.” He ignores the raised eyebrow, and desperate to escape to relay the night’s events to Hayley, Patrick says, “Thanks for meeting me, I needed this.” 

“Yeah, man, of course,” Pete is saying, and encloses Patrick in a hug. “Boston wasn’t the same without you.” 

The words don’t hit Patrick the way he’s expecting. Instead of feeling sick, the colors blur behind his eyelids and Patrick resists the urge to bury his nose in Pete’s armpit. Patrick presses his cheekbones to Pete’s collarbones and hopes Pete can feel the appreciation seeping from his skin. Words aren’t enough. 

They say a lot, but there’s still so much left unsaid, namely a resigned, _Fuck_ , Pete as he stands in line to buy another coffee before he drives to Mikey’s for the night, Patrick as he glances over his shoulder at Pete one last time before he steps out into the warm night air and begins his trek to the nearest subway stop. 

_July, Year VI_

Patrick opens his front door dressed in a worn t-shirt and sweatpants and carrying a bowl of cereal in his hands. He looks Pete over with hidden enthusiasm and asks, “What’s the excuse?”

“For being five minutes late?” Pete replies. He pulls off his jacket inside the doorway and unbuttons his collar and the first two buttons of his shirt. He’s still in his clothes from work, having left late as usual, and he glances at Patrick’s comfortable clothes and wonders if it would be acceptable to lounge across Patrick’s couch in his underwear. Pete gestures at Patrick’s cereal and accuses, “And you’re eating without me.”

“Fifteen minutes late.”

“I got asked by a recruiter if I wanted to take an anonymous survey about my sexual experiences outside the Pru. I also left the office late.”

Patrick considers this answer carefully, still in the doorway. “How many people do you think would lie about the size of their penis when given the chance?” He asks. His mouth closes around the backside of his spoon, eyes dark, and Pete laughs.

“Most,” Pete answers.

“Would you?”

“Guess I wouldn’t know. I didn’t take the survey.”

Patrick pulls the spoon from his mouth. “I wouldn’t. What movie are we watching?”

They decide on _Pet Sematary_ (the remake, not the original). Pete calls in their take-out order while Patrick finds the movie on the television, and Pete peels off his dress shirt before he sinks into Patrick’s couch. Patrick’s couch, though new to Patrick, is already falling apart, and Pete thinks affectionately that the decrepit couch has developed from a symbol of Patrick’s lower-middle class status to a beloved character trait. It’s a respect for the people and items that serve others, an inability to let go, and a love for other people’s shortcomings.

“Here,” Patrick says. He pushes the living room windows open, turns the overhead lights off, and sets the television remote on his coffee table before he flops into the other end of the couch.

“Thanks,” is Pete’s absent reply, and Patrick watches him light up with a quiet fondness, the visible pride with which one might watch their young child discover something new, read a short story in a picture book, or offer to help a peer. It’s a maternal and quiet adoration; Patrick tilts his head like a patient dog and awaits the brush of Pete’s fingers as he passes the joint over the couch to Patrick.

Patrick leans against the arm of the couch and pulls a long inhale. It feels warm but everything feels warm— the throw pillow under his thighs, his mouth where it’s wrapped around the rolled paper, the fabric of Pete’s dress pants under the arch of his foot.

“I went to this party with William,” Patrick starts. He studies the back of his hand and Pete’s crossed legs for a silent moment. “One of the only times I smoked there, but— they made me watch _Ghostbusters_ and it was scarier than _Deborah Logan._ ”

Pete lets him have it— the dumb paranoia, the cult horror reference, the talking about an ex— without mockery. “Why,” Pete asks, though it sounds like a statement.

“Don’t know,” Patrick answers. He peels his eyes from Pete’s knees and gives him a tight smile. “I was kind of cross-faded.”

Pete laughs.

The movie becomes ambiance, horror but of the least frightening kind. It’s a flickering light show in greyscale, serving only to illuminate them in different intensities and obscure what is left of Patrick’s anxieties after half of a blunt is gone. With the windows open, the room is colder and Patrick huddles further into his shirt and the corner of the couch, making himself as small as possible with his arms and legs folded. _Pet Semetary_ is full of trashy jump scares and the most discomforting creatures but Patrick doesn’t notice, or watch anything other than Pete’s stilted movements. Patrick feels nothing but safe, despite the horror movie, though he does jump when the doorbell rings.

“That’s our food,” Patrick informs the room, extricating himself from the grasp of the couch. “I’ll go get it.” He returns with their take-out and a pair of forks, and Pete grinds out the blunt in Patrick’s ashtray and reaches for his food. “I can get you a drink.”

“No,” Pete replies shortly. “Sit down,” and Patrick folds his legs into the crook of Pete’s hips and leans back against Pete’s fingers on the small of his back. He peels the plastic lid off of his take-out container and lets it fall to the carpet to pick up later, subtly aware that Pete has done the same.

“Does Mikey know you’re here?” Patrick asks suddenly, around a mouthful of food. Pete shakes his head, exhaling half of a laugh, and Patrick reaches up to tangle his knuckles in Pete’s hair. “Why not?”

Pete scoffs and shrugs. His pinkie finger tickles Patrick’s spine by accident, an extension of the hand holding his fork. “There’s no good answer to that question. He doesn’t need to know. I’m practicing moral ambiguity.”

“There’s so many good answers to that question,” Patrick replies with an eye roll for emphasis. His eyes glitter behind partially-closed eyelids, his head still feels fuzzy, his body is warm. “What do you know about moral ambiguity?”

Pete stabs at his food. “I should be at dinner with Mikey. I cheated my way through undergrad so I could go to law school. I’m pretty sure my job makes me a hypocrite because I think that corporations that don’t serve the consumer should be demolished.”

Patrick laughs. “So, you’re practicing moral ambiguity.”

“Yeah, and what are you going to do about it?”

Patrick watches Pete swallow and settles back into Pete’s hips. He tips his head back against the top of the couch, staring at his white plaster ceiling, lets his eyes flicker to catch a glimpse of Pete’s face, and discloses, “Tell you that you should do whatever ambiguous thing you’ve been avoiding for forever because you think it’ll make you a bad person.”

“You would like that,” Pete answers petulantly, informing himself more than he is Patrick, and Patrick stiffens.

_If you weren’t mine, I’d be jealous of your love.—_ Venice Bitch 

Later, after he’s come down from his head high, Pete takes his leftovers in a paper bag from Patrick and after watching Patrick’s pointed step backward, sets the bag on the floor and wraps Patrick in an antagonizing, inescapable embrace. “I’m serious,” Pete teases, pulling him back in as Patrick leans against his arms. “Call me. Don’t be such a stranger.” Patrick laughs and shoves him away gently, and Pete knows the jump in his chest isn’t coincidence, it’s an indication of how desperately he wants Patrick to pull him just that much closer, press their mouths together.

Instead, Patrick takes another step backward and fits his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. He gives Pete a tight smile and a nod, a cursory goodbye, already distancing himself from the discomfort of closing the door on Pete after a nearly perfect evening. “I’ll try,” Patrick promises. “Maybe we can do something at your place.”

Pete hesitates, thinking of how Mikey infiltrates the space even when he’s not around, the fading smell of Mikey’s aftershave rubbed into the leather couch, Mikey’s beers in his fridge, the key no longer taped to the inside of his mail slot because he’d given it to Mikey. “Sure,” Pete agrees finally. “Whenever."

Patrick closes the door and stands in his kitchen for a moment, alone. His hands still fisted in his pockets, the seconds tick by with a throbbing headache, and then like the consequences of a time bomb, Patrick experiences a flash flooding of emotions, rhythmic and implacable like drowning under ocean waves, and if he doesn’t get this out now, he is going to throw up, or otherwise, it will poison him from the inside.

It’s three steps to the door, Patrick knows. He shoves his arms in his jacket (Why? It’s August. He doesn’t know.) and flings open the door. “Pete?” he calls down the stairs, his voice small. “Wait.” 


	22. In which Gabe has a Halloween party.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’m telling you: this all Really happened. I had a love I ripped through like it was bread.”_ — Amy Woolard

_July, Year VI.II_

From the bottom of the stairs, Pete’s gaze falls over his body and Patrick feels like crying, emotional energy running low, a lump forming in the back of his throat. The decision is impetuous, and Pete barely has time to extend needy arms before Patrick bounds down the flight of stairs, grabs a handful of Pete’s starched shirt in each of his fists, and pulls Pete’s mouth to his. Patrick feels Pete’s sharp intake of breath against his chest, and then Pete enfolds him in a soul-crushing embrace and Patrick forgets about any uncertainties he’d had about the decision. 

It’d been pure solipsism and the exchange is heedless. Pete kisses him with a fervency and a desperation fueled by a couple years of distance, and it’s wet and clumsy, two years has caused a loss of the precision that comes only with practice. Patrick can’t bring himself to care. He’s soaking in it; Pete’s nose bumps his and Patrick swallows a grin and presses his mouth to Pete’s teeth. Patrick lets Pete kiss him stupid, like he has the choice with the way Pete’s elbow has him trapped in a headlock, like he could crawl into Pete’s skin and live there, warm and surrounded by something inexplicably simple, easy. 

The kiss feels like chocolate cake tastes, decadent and sweet, almost bitter and a bit too much, and Patrick indulges in Pete’s mouth and the smell of fading aftershave, Pete’s unyielding arms still wrapped around him, and Pete breathes him in with a shuddering sigh and it feels like the homecoming Patrick has been patiently awaiting. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick breathes quickly, sounding genuinely sorry for the first time in years, and laughs against Pete’s mouth. Pete’s chest is hot, bleeding through layers of clothing, and Patrick takes one look at Pete’s wide eyes and mouth slightly agape and could cry with the sickly-sweet wave of nostalgia he’s suddenly hit with. 

“This is moral ambiguity, huh?” Patrick laughs, and Pete kisses him again, with twice the sweetness and the same amount of desperation. Patrick inhales, closes his clinging fingers around Pete’s hips like Pete will slip through his fingers again, and Pete exhales, “Fuck, I cannot fucking do this right now.” Patrick gapes at him innocently, hands cupped over Pete’s sharp hips, and simpers when Pete pulls him back up into an open-mouthed kiss. Patrick pushes his nose to Pete’s cheek and thinks he might melt when Pete shoves blunt fingernails into his hair. 

“You’re playing games with me,” Patrick mumbles, nerves dissipating into an adrenaline-driven craving for more soft exploratory kisses and the flat of Pete’s hands pressed to his spine. 

“I am not,” Pete replies with wavering confidence. “I swear that I’m not.”

“You just like making me wait.” 

“Can you blame me?” Pete asks, and Patrick doesn’t want to take his nose off of Pete’s face, or move away from Pete’s hands on his sides, or exhale whatever breath he’s inherited from Pete. Pete breathes beneath him and Patrick wants to live here. “Fuck, I shouldn’t,” Pete breathes, “Fuck, I really fucking shouldn’t.”

♥

For a Friday night, Pete sleeps even less than usual. He parades around the apartment for the rest of the evening, mindlessly scrolling through his phone. He unprofessionally replies to a few emails to his copy editor and hopes she won’t notice it’s past one and restlessly considers calling Mikey. Pete drops his head and shoulders over the arm of his couch and feels his spine click into place. 

He rolls the unavoidable prospect of break-up with Mikey around in his head in the same way he rolls his shoulders to crack his neck and waits for Patrick’s half-hearted _I’m sorry_ text, except that Patrick has already given his apology, so why does Pete want to hear it again, except to shriek mocking apologies into his pillowcase?

He thinks about calling Patrick to demand an answer he doesn’t want (it ruins the magic), he contemplates calling Gabe to talk it over with someone who can play the role of the rational person with relative credibility, and he wonders if he should consult his mother, interrupting her Friday evening to snivel vaguely on the phone about feeling lost and wanting everything at once. He’d call his sister if not for the time zones. Going to bed is the obvious choice, but Pete would rather chew on his cuticles in front of the muted television and meditate on whether Patrick is passed out or gossiping with Hayley within a nest of blankets. Both possibilities are equally plausible. 

In the next week, they (Pete and Mikey, Pete and Patrick) hardly speak. Pete leaves Patrick a vague voicemail about making plans and confirms their usual date for Friday night, resolving not to encourage any more advances until he decides what to do about Mikey, but the problem is, Friday nights become a fast habit through the rest of the summer. 

It goes like this: the evenings begin at Jaho, the nearest neutral location to Pete’s apartment, for a half-caffeinated coffee, and then they walk the two blocks back to Pete’s apartment, Pete’s car.

Pete slams the door to the car and drops his coffee into the cup holder between them. “We can pick up dinner on the way to my place,” Patrick offers, “Or get it delivered— just tell me what you want.”

“You pick,” is Pete’s perpetual reply, and while Patrick orders dinner over the phone, Pete hesitantly leans over the center console and slides his hand down the inside of Patrick’s thigh until it comes to rest above Patrick’s knee. It’s soft, more for comfort than anything else, and Patrick covers half of his mouth with his palm, swallows, and stares out the dark window, still on the phone. Beside him, Pete sighs, and Patrick feels his stomach flip, the corner of his mouth quirk upwards. 

They eat when they get back to Patrick’s, or otherwise they forget about food until later and smoke, and regardless, the night always ends with Patrick’s head in Pete’s lap and Pete’s fingers combed through his hair.

“Someday,” Pete says around a mouthful of rice, “I will get you to make me an Italian dinner.”

Patrick laughs from the back of his throat and digs around in his plastic take-out container. “Then you’ll be disappointed to learn I almost never cooked for myself.”

“Disappointed?”

“Not surprised.”

“You just ate out all the time?”

Patrick shrugs and abandons his fork, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “William cooked a lot,” he says smally, and braces for Pete’s reaction, but Pete only laughs. Patrick gives him an embarrassed smile. “Please stop looking at me like that."

Pete stays later each time, willfully ignorant to Patrick’s implied invitation to stay the night, and pulls him into a tight embrace in the doorway before he leaves. “Next week?” Pete asks with Patrick’s face pressed into his shoulder. He adds, “If you’re free,” and Patrick hums. Pete tucks a stray piece of hair behind his ear.

“Yeah,” Patrick replies. Pete is warm and sturdy around him and Patrick lets himself exhale for the first time all week. “I don’t have plans.” He’s being cautious, and Pete’s knowing grin is blinding. 

They do it again, and again, and things get easier. Being friends requires practice, and Patrick is getting good at it. Ignoring the nagging feeling of _more_ is relatively painless when there are unspoken boundaries and a routine, when they don’t talk about Mikey, write off a single kiss as a force of habit, and labeling it as friends is preferable to pervasive ambiguity, though as much as he can pretend, they aren’t friends. They aren’t anything, besides desperate to avoid the messing around and pretending there are no consequences, imitating a friends-with-benefits relationship with surprise feelings, so— they’re friends, and if every time Pete glances at him out of the corner of his eye when he thinks Patrick won’t notice, Patrick returns a sheepish smile and has to look away before Pete can see the blush creeping up his cheekbones, c’est la vie. 

_September, Year IV_

The finale is surprisingly anticlimactic. “I read Kafka in high school,” Mikey says over a cherry-stained table at the Gallows, “But I didn’t get it. Did you think it was funny?”

“I don’t remember,” Pete replies, tired and noncommittal. He remembers reading _Amerika_ , the jokes, but whether the jokes were amusing or not is anyone’s guess. He scrapes his fork against his plate and won’t meet Mikey’s eyes over the table. “Did you read anything you liked?” 

“I read Hemingway, too, but I thought it was dry.”

Pete holds his fork in his lap under the table. Twisting it between his thumb and index finger, he blinks. “Yeah, that’s kind of the point. It’s a stylistic choice.” 

Mikey shrugs. “That doesn’t mean it’s good,” he says, and he has a point, which pisses Pete off more than anything, more than Mikey’s jealous tendencies, more than the casual digs at his friends, more than Mikey’s commitment to finding the worst in everything. 

The break-up with Mikey is inevitable, Pete thinks begrudgingly, a matter of when rather than if, and Patrick’s broad shoulders under his forearms and soft mouth have only confirmed it. Regardless, Pete sits on the decision for days. He doesn’t want to break up with Mikey; he likes their stupid emotionless arrangement and Mikey is funny and quick-witted when he’s not feeling insecure or finding minutia to argue about, and Mikey definitely will not take the break-up well. It’s the threat of a deadpan impassive tantrum orchestrated to make Pete look like the villain that really makes him reconsider. Mikey’s fits of passion differ from his own— his own being a habit of internalizing every sideways thought and coughing them all back up weeks too late, vomiting in front of a National Historic Landmark, a confidential conniption in the front seat of a BMW, binge drinking after two years of experimental sobriety (this one was timely)— which, once he’s over the initial discomfort, is just another reason why he and Mikey will always be just short of compatible. Thin-skinned boys separated from their inordinately affectionate mothers rarely pair well with the human equivalent of an ecstasy comedown— the residual delusions are fun, and then it just sucks.

“Why don’t you just break up?” and “You’re still together?” are the unanimously asked questions, and Pete has an itemized list of responses, but the real one, Pete only tells Gabe, “No one else is going to be more miserable than me.” 

Pete texts Gabe now,  _is breaking up with someone in public to avoid having them make a scene a total act of cowardice??_

Gabe replies with, _you do what you do,_ followed by a series of kissing faces, and it doesn’t answer Pete’s question but it does make him feel better. He waits until Friday afternoon before he messages Mikey. 

_can you meet me at pavement tomorrow morning?_

Mikey seems to type for minutes before he replies, _Sure,_ and Pete thinks, _fuck Mikey’s intuition_. Mikey knows what is coming, Pete is sure of it, despite the vague text. He spends the rest of the evening chewing on the inside of his lip and wondering if he’s making the right decision— but being a natural risk-taker has some advantages, and Saturday morning, Pete rides the 1 Bus as close to the coffee shop as it will take him. The ride is dull, matching the unusually grey skies of a July morning and fitting for the spent feeling that has taken up residence in Pete’s skull. 

He steps off the bus fifteen minutes before he’d agreed to meet Mikey with enough dread to make the soles of his shoes stick to the concrete. The sidewalks are occupied by people with headphones on and their heads down, and Pete feels appropriately invisible. He kills time buying a half-sized journal at Blick and crosses Huntington Avenue to the Symphony Pavement, praying that Mikey arrives before he does. 

He’s not so lucky. Mikey is nowhere to be seen in the sea of college students bent over notebooks or staring glazed-eyed at open laptops. Thinking that caffeine is necessary, Pete pays for a coffee and sits in the only empty seat by the window. He glances out the window hoping to catch sight of Mikey, but the only mildly interesting thing is a tornado of dead leaves on the barren sidewalk caught in the tailwind of a passing bus and eventually drowning in stagnant water on the street left over from a storm earlier in the week. Pete pulls out his new notebook. 

Mikey is officially late. Pete scratches fragments of sentences into the second page of his notebook, his eyes flickering to the door each time the bell hanging from the door handle rings, but Mikey slips in noiselessly. Pete peers up from his book, meeting Mikey’s usual stoic expression, and Pete slams the cover closed on his hand. 

Pete asks politely, “Do you want a coffee?” 

“No,” Mikey replies, voice smooth and even. He sounds impassioned and Pete finds himself peeved at the thought. Mikey sits stiffly in the chair opposite of Pete and stacks his hands on the table. “Spill it.”

“We should— I think we should break up,” Pete starts quietly. He stammers on blindly, “I like you, and this wa— is really important to me, but some things just aren't working for me and it’s not fun to force it.” 

Stone-faced, Mikey closes his hands into fists on the table. He says plainly, “Like what?” 

Pete does a double-take over his coffee. “Like what?” 

“Yeah, like,” Mikey blusters. “Like, the fight we had about sleeping together, or when you wouldn’t even entertain the option of moving in together?” 

“Because we only—” Pete flinches inwardly and resolves not to start an unnecessary argument. He tries to focus his eyes on Mikey’s face and only succeeds in looking in one of Mikey’s eyes at a time. “I’m just not—” 

“Or,” Mikey continues, “Why didn’t you tell me you got wasted at G’s party?” 

“—Having fun,” Pete finishes. “Wait, what?” 

Mikey translates for him, “You’re so obvious. How did you think I wasn’t going to find out you got wasted at G’s party? That’s my brother.” Mikey gives him a look of disbelief, and Pete is forced to admit he had overlooked that relationship too many times. “You’re not good at keeping secrets.” 

“That was months ago?” Pete hisses incredulously, and warily, “It’s not a secret.” 

Mikey arches an eyebrow. “Fine, tell me what you did last weekend.” 

“You don’t trust me at all.” Pete refrains from blurting out his usual Friday night whereabouts. They’re over, Mikey doesn’t need to know, but it still feels criminal to let Mikey go without an explanation.

“Why should I?” 

An argument in hushed tones over a singular cup of coffee, they’ve yet to attract the attention of any other patrons, but Pete glances around furtively and explains, “Mikey, it’s really not just about Patrick.” The confession is lost on him until Mikey puts a hand to his face, and Pete needlessly explains, panicked, “We argue about the stupidest stuff! You just said you don’t trust me.” 

Mikey looks furious. Pete’s leg twitches with the animalistic urge to run. “Pete,” Mikey says in response. “It is always about Patrick,” and Pete has no rebuttal. He sits silently, hand clasped over the cover of his coffee and pretending to be upset, and Mikey rolls his eyes and mumbles, “I should go.” 

Mikey stands to leave. Red in the face, he shoves his phone and wallet in his armpit haphazardly and kicks the chair under the table. _Please, go fuck yourself,_ he doesn’t say, but it’s heavily implied. 

“I’m really sorry,” Pete emphasizes, but instead of sorry, all he really feels is relieved. 

“Let me tell you again,” Mikey says before he turns to leave. He laughs. “The book, your weird close relationship with Gabe, all your weird bullshit feelings about your car? I’m not a fucking idiot. It is _always_ about Patrick.” The bell on the door rings as Mikey leaves and Pete watches him go. He finishes his coffee for lack of anything better to do, reviews the few scribblings in his new notebook, and texts Gabe the latest Mikey update. 

Gabe only replies, _Sucks,_ and, _Which vejas are better blue or orange?_

Mikey texts him later, multiple paragraphs. He ends it with, _I wish you’d told me, you’re better than that_ , and unsure of what Mikey is referring to, Pete refuses to feel guilty. Instead, he lets Gabe take him out bar-hopping with plans to get toasted on vodka and craft beer and purge Mikey in the process. 

“Listen to me,” Gabe tells him over his first drink at bar number two. “You cannot start this shit with Patrick until you’re over Mikey. Rebound or six month buffer period, pick one.” 

“Yep,” Pete replies dismissively. 

“I think you should give me your phone,” Gabe says outside of bar number three. Pete looks at him funny. He’s fine. 

“I’m fine,” Pete insists. The sidewalk only slides a little under the soles of his sneakers. He keeps the phone through bar four, takes a picture of his elbow in the bathroom, and nearly leaves it in the booth when they leave. They’re both a little drunk by the time Gabe wrestles it from him halfway through bar five. 

“I’m s’posed to be rebounding. How am I s’posed to be rebounding if you have my phone?” Pete asks, mostly joking, and Gabe returns an incredulous look. He snatches the phone from Pete’s hands, immune to Pete’s protesting, and slips it into his back pocket.

“Talk to people in real life.” 

“Everyone has a date already,” Pete complains. “Give me my phone back.” 

“So you can download Tinder or text Mikey or hook up with Ryan? No, dude.” Gabe glances around the crowded room and gestures to a trio of women at the bar. “The girl with red hair is cute. Go ask if you can buy her something.” 

Pete considers it for a moment before reluctantly sliding out of the chair at their raised table and maneuvering across the room to approach the girl at the bar. Gabe watches him go, takes a sip off the top of his drink, and feels Pete’s phone buzz in his pocket. Gabe takes the phone out of his pocket long enough to read the latest Mikey’s latest grievance and strangle the phone before he replaces it. He looks up to watch Pete cross his ankles under the barstool and announce something to the group of girls. One of the girls frowns, obviously taken aback, and Gabe curses Pete and also God as he drags himself to the bar. 

“I’m having a rough time lately,” Pete yells over the sound of glassware, loud music, and strangers’ laughter, “And the bars kind of suck right now because all the college kids are at home.” 

Gabe grabs his elbow, groaning. “That’s not— he doesn’t mean it like that,” Gabe tells the red-haired woman patiently, and after apologizing and excusing himself, tows Pete outside into the humid night by the wrist. Pete wrenches his hand from Gabe’s grasp with a hurt look, and Gabe demands, “What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” Pete whines. 

“Please stop telling people you’re interested in barely legal college girls.” 

“My God, I’m not fucking interested in any girls.” Pete takes a shaky inhale, suddenly exhausted. “We should just go home.” 

“We can try again next weekend,” Gabe offers. 

“Or we can just fucking forget about it?” Pete offers in return. “Can I have my phone?” 

“No,” Gabe snaps. 

The phone stays in Gabe’s back pocket. They buy a milkshake to split on the way home with Pete’s credit card and still tipsy on the subway ride back to Gabe’s house, Pete leans against Gabe’s shoulder and slurs, “I have to tell you something— tomorrow. Guess what I did?” Gabe gives him a sideways glance, and Pete laughs until his head is between his knees. 

Gabe tosses an arm around his shoulders haphazardly. “You’re fucking crazy,” Gabe informs him, and Pete only laughs again. 

Pete falls asleep on top of the covers in Gabe’s guest bedroom. Gabe leaves a plastic bottle of water and his phone, still off, on the nightstand and turns the adjacent bathroom light on before he leaves the room. Pete awakes the following morning with a hangover to kill a man and is slightly disappointed in himself for having sent no drunken texts to former lovers. Fuck Gabe for being a good friend.

♥

Four dinners through the month of September and at the last, Patrick is spirited on a singular beer after a long day and his own cologne. It had been an afternoon of boring meetings following an awkward conversation with Victoria in the morning, and exhausted, Patrick is lacking the energy for social nuance, though he’s managed to muster the stamina for take-out. 

“Are you alright?” Patrick asks. 

“Mikey and I broke up,” Pete announces to Patrick’s kitchen. He unearths a piece of broccoli from his rice and pretends he doesn’t notice Patrick nearly choke around his mouthful of food. 

Patrick struggles to swallow the lump in the back of his throat, still not quite through with chewing. “Oh,” he says gingerly. “I’m sorry.” He meets Pete’s eyes for a split second, and Pete returns to excavating his dinner. 

“Yeah,” Pete says.

Standing at the edge of his counter, Patrick watches as Pete digs holes into his box of fried rice and thinks he might be hungry for more than just his lukewarm dinner. Pete’s presence is intoxicating, even if he’s more guarded than usual, and Patrick drinks it in like smooth alcohol and feels it settle warmly in his chest. It’s too early though, and Patrick pushes his premature thoughts to the back of his mind and focuses on playing friends. He takes a long look at Pete and asks, “Do you want a drink? I have wine and an IPA and uh, Smirnoff.” 

Pete laughs. “I already went out with Gabe, if that’s what you mean,” he replies, and finishes after pulling his phone from his pocket and pretending to check the time, “And I shouldn’t, I still have to drive home and it’s been a shit week.” 

“You can stay,” Patrick offers quickly. He clears his throat and stumbles through, “Stay over, I mean, if it gets late and if you don’t have to get up tomorrow. We don’t— it’s just a suggestion. You don’t have to.” 

Pete says again, “Yeah.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want something to drink?” Patrick repeats, knowing that the answer is yes.

Remember how things shouldn’t be this easy?

_It’s so sweet, pouring you a drink and pretending,_

_That nothing means anything —_ Groupie Love

“Thanks,” Pete says later, sliding under the duvet in Patrick’s bedroom. His underwear clings to the back of his thighs and the round of his ass, and Patrick rolls to the opposite side of his bed. His fingers twitch in the sheets.

“For what?” Patrick asks. Pete exhales a laugh through his nose in reply. 

Pete stays up into the early hours of the morning writing on his phone, and Patrick drifts in and out of sleep to the ambiance of the blue light reflecting off his sheets and the sound of Pete’s slow breaths. 

They shift during the night and Patrick wakes to Pete’s face in his shoulder and his knee pressed to Pete’s hip. The world doesn’t end. Through his cracked window, he can hear the faint sound of distant traffic on Route 1 and a stray siren, just like every other morning, and Patrick sleepily stares at Pete’s childish cheeks and the tattoo on the back of his neck and victoriously thinks, _Fuck boundaries._

_October, Year VI_

Four is good, but five is a magic number.

 _Meeting a client after hrs on Friday,_ Pete writes on Wednesday. He chews on the end of his thumb and formulates how to tell Patrick he still wants to see each other. It turns out to be exactly that. _I still want to see you but have to leave early. dinner at your house skip coffee?_ He adds as an afterthought, _I can bring you groceries?_

Patrick inhales deeply when he gets the message. It’s simple enough, a dinner invitation and a slight change of plans, but so soon after the breakup with Mikey and the (boring) events of the previous weekend, the implications are heavy. Just out of the shower and naked except for the damp towel around his shoulders, Patrick considers replying to the text. He considers the text while sitting on the couch watching reruns of _That 70’s Show_ and reading Nate’s latest piece, which William had kindly forwarded to him. He considers the text while brushing his teeth over the bathroom sink and is still considering the text when he slides into bed for the night. He considers that it would be rude not to reply.

Patrick reaches for his phone and sighs. He’s still high from last weekend’s sleepover. The left side of his bed still smells like Pete if he concentrates, and Patrick presses his cheek into his pillowcase and mulls over asking if Pete would rather go out for drinks afterward, then remembers that Pete and alcohol never mix well for him— or rather, mix too well.

 _We can do my place_. _Let me know what you want to make,_ Patrick sends in reply, and spends the next two days forgetting that he wants.

Pete comes over Friday night with the equivalent of two weeks worth of groceries in paper bags balanced in his elbow and they spend the evening cooking to the best of their collective ability and flirting around each other. Patrick’s house smells of food and the radiator of his downstairs neighbor and feels more like home than it has since Patrick first moved in.

Patrick stands in the top of his stairwell just outside of his front door at the end of the night and tries to think of something to say that will keep the night from ending. He rests a hip against the doorframe and crosses his arms over his chest, runs his hands down his arms like he’s cold, and gives a cautious smile. He opens his mouth prematurely and comes up with nothing. “Good luck with your meeting?” he says finally, and laughs. “I was going to ask if you wanted to do drinks afterward but, um— it’s already late, and—”

The parting is always awkward. Pete scratches at the back of his neck and fixes the tag in the collar of his shirt. “Thanks,” he says. “Sorry I have to leave early, but we can still do next week.” Pete takes a massive inhale and the defeated laugh escapes him, shoulders falling. “Look, I know with Mikey and everything— and I didn’t leave things that great between us, but— can I kiss you?” Pete admits, “I, um— I really want to kiss you.”

Patrick manages, “Please,” and the millisecond before Pete’s mouth is on his is defined by the sharp inhale Patrick takes through parted lips. Patrick braces for the homecoming that feels like Pete’s mouth, and then Pete lands one hand on Patrick’s hip, fumbling like he’s out of practice, and the other on the small of Patrick’s back, and kisses him.

 _Yeah,_ Patrick thinks, and, _Yeah,_ when his fingers close around the back of Pete’s elbow and the back of Pete’s neck. He lets his eyes flutter closed and holds his breath until he feels Pete’s exhale under his hands.

“Last time I agree to meeting anyone after-hours,” Pete says. Patrick hums, kisses just the curve of Pete’s lower lip, and smiles against the corner of his mouth. “Okay.” Pete laughs and Patrick smiles against the corner of his mouth. “Fuck, I really do have to go.”

“Okay,” is Patrick’s warm reply, reluctantly exhaled. He doesn’t want to take his nose off Pete’s face, or move away from Pete’s hands on his sides, or expel whatever breath he’s inherited from Pete. Pete breathes beneath his arms and Patrick wants to live here.

“And we’re going to talk about this?” Pete sounds nervous, taken-aback even. 

“Uh-huh.” Patrick drags him back down, laughing, and messier than before, Pete’s mouth slides against his easily.

“Okay,” Pete breathes, heart pounding. “Okay.” He grabs Patrick’s face, kisses the side of Patrick’s mouth. “I’m, uh— I’m going to go, and we’re going to talk about this later.” 

“Sure.” Patrick grins at him stupidly and Pete’s heart skips one, two, three beats, before he tears himself away from Patrick’s warm body and sprints down the stairwell to the car, ten minutes late.

In the cramped office, Pete can barely focus on his client. She says something about a missed insurance payment, a legal case from fifteen years ago involving joint custody, and unapproved credit charges, and it ends with, “Thank you so much for meeting me so late. It really means so much to me."

Pete’s heart rate has yet to return to normal. He clears his throat and offers, “Yeah, of course.” He feels a little guilty, knowing he should be doing a better job of listening, and then his ego provides, _What did she expect when I agreed to meet her outside of office hours?_ He writes down as much as he can and tells himself he can call her on Monday to confirm the details.

His phone buzzes in the pocket of his jacket and Pete swallows hard. His heart lurches every time he thinks of Patrick twisting his fingers in Pete’s shirt in the hallway, Patrick’s face pressed close to his, and then thinks of the last time Patrick had undressed in front of him, hips wiggling out of the elastic waistband of his boxers, and— 

“We can talk about it more on Monday,” she says, and Pete stands from his desk fast enough that the chair struggles to stay vertical.

“Absolutely,” he agrees, “It was great to talk with you.” He shakes her hand firmly, plays the wide, charming smile card, and hopes she hadn’t picked up on his intellectual absence in the past hour. He pulls his phone out from his pocket as soon as she leaves the office. 

No texts from Patrick. Pete frowns, but refusing to be discouraged, he keeps his phone fisted in his hand while he gathers his papers, neatens his desk, and heads for the car. He’s barely sitting in the driver’s seat before he has Patrick’s number dialed and the phone ringing. Patrick picks up on the second tone. 

“Hi,” Pete breathes into the phone. “I just got out— do you still want to go get a drink? Like, not at your place. I can meet you somewhere.” Patrick is silent on the other end and Pete anxiously imagines Patrick’s face of mild disgust at the proposition. 

In reality, Patrick looks over his decaying blue sweatpants and his television screen that reads, _Are you still watching?_ The answer is no, he’s not, and Patrick reaches for the remote on the coffee table and asks dumbly, “Like, right now?” 

“Yeah.”

“Sure but I need an hour, I’m—” 

“—And I don’t really want to talk about it, can we just get a drink and forget about it?” 

Amused, Patrick replies, “Yeah?” 

“Yeah to which part? The not wanting to talk about it, or the date part, because—” 

Patrick realizes Pete can’t see the blush over his cheekbones and the childlike smile he’s trying desperately to conceal for his own dignity. “Both, Pete.” 

Pete’s smile is evident through the phone. He grins at his hands, still cold and clammy from the adrenaline of asking. “The Met is better than JJ’s now.” 

“I call bullshit,” Patrick replies, and though they both already know it’s not true, “I thought you weren’t drinking.” 

“Things have changed since you’ve been gone,” retorts Pete, “And I’ll see you in an hour.”

♥

Call it a flurry of bad judgement on Pete’s part, a still-kind-of-fresh break-up with Mikey, or the natural rhythm of the night; one glass of wine is the predecessor to three and a year of experimental sobriety renders Pete virtually useless at handling even the most benign alcohol. The reasons for denying the offer for a drink in Patrick’s apartment become obvious— it’s too convenient, Patrick’s couch too inviting, Patrick’s bedroom too few steps away. 

Similarly, the evening bears witness to Patrick’s restlessness, fixation on making up for lost time, a subtle frustration that punches him in the stomach each time it’s left unchecked. Tonight, it’s the back and forth between Pete and their female bartender, to which Pete seems oblivious. Patrick should be jealous, but it’s hard to be envious of her when Pete gives her a generous five minutes’ worth of attention for the near hour and a half they spend at the bar. Her clever efforts at flirting die completely unnoticed, enough that Patrick kicks him in the ankle when Pete politely refuses the free drink that’s offered to him. Patrick asserts, “I’ll take it if he won’t,” and nudges Pete under the bar again, just because he can. 

She leans her elbows on the bar from the other side, scrunches up her face in an imitation of a smile, and asks, “Can I get anything else for you?” 

“Do you want anything else?” Pete asks, and Patrick’s eyes flicker from Pete’s eyes to Pete’s mouth to the collar of Pete’s shirt. The bar is suddenly very warm, and slightly wine-drunk, Patrick finds himself non-verbal. He shakes his head, so Pete flashes the waitress his most winning smile and tells her hurriedly, “I’ll just take the cheque, then.” He slides a card over the counter and she leaves throwing her blonde ponytail over one shoulder. She hands the card back enclosed in a folded receipt, and Pete pockets his card with a discomforting sense of finality as Patrick finishes his drink and leaves the receipt on the counter. “Are you ready to go?” 

“She liked you,” Patrick tells Pete outside on Tremont Street, wide-eyed as if he can’t quite believe Pete hadn’t picked up on her blatant flirting, offended on her behalf.

“Who?” Pete takes a step backward in the direction of his apartment. 

“The waitress— she wrote her number on your receipt and you left it on the bar.” 

“And?” Pete replies. 

“And it didn’t occur to you that you should have kept it, just to look nice?” 

“I didn’t even notice,” Pete insists. “She wasn’t— honestly, that’s not what I was paying attention to.” 

Despite the wind tunnel of the street outside and the steadily dropping temperature, Patrick is still uncomfortably warm. Pete looks slighted, a guilty expression better suited for a much more serious disagreement, and Patrick opens his mouth to say something reassuring. Nothing comes out. 

Pete’s hand closes around the car keys Patrick knows he keeps in the pocket of the liner of his coat. He frowns. “I, um— I probably shouldn’t drive you home, but I can call a car for you. Only if you want, though, I don’t want to—” 

Far from reassuring, Patrick blurts out, “Impose? It’s a little ironic, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah.”

“Pete,” Patrick says. He gives an awkward laugh. “You don’t have to call me a car. I’m not really tired. I’ll just walk for a bit, I’ll get the train near your place.” 

Pete shoves his hands further into his pockets, brow furrowed. He pulls his lip into his mouth and looks over the wine blush on Patrick’s cheeks and Patrick’s perfectly pointed nose. Patrick only stares back, looking irritated, and Pete offers, “We’re doing this, aren’t we?”

Patrick’s eyes flicker up and right, a reluctant admittance that there’s no other way the night ends other than Patrick’s heartbeat pressed into Pete’s heaving chest. “I should go home tonight,” Patrick confesses, “But yeah, probably.” 

Pete says, “It doesn’t count if you don’t kiss on the mouth,” which, it’s a little late for that, but it’s the offer that keeps Patrick sweet on him. 

“Yeah,” Patrick says then, “For sure.” 

It’s a certain thing; falling into the back of the car together feels impossibly easy. Pete hauls him in by the scruff of the neck as soon as Patrick slams the door of the car behind them, and Patrick shoves the anxiety brewing in his stomach under the floor mats and allows Pete’s hands to find their way up the back of his coat, fingernails just touching his spine. The strangers on the street cease to exist. 

“I don’t care who sees,” Pete mumbles, and with Pete’s warm body pressed against his side and Pete’s forearm up the back of his shirt, Patrick is moonstruck, reveling in every word of adoration Pete drools in his ear. Pete’s teeth graze the curve of his ear and Patrick presses further into his side, unthinkably closer. 

Patrick pulls away from Pete’s nose on his neck, a gentle threat of teeth, to give Pete an uncertain look through his eyelashes. He sighs and swallows, fingers tracing the seam on the outside of Pete’s thigh. 

“What?” Pete asks in a whisper. 

“Pete,” Patrick replies in the same whisper, and Pete’s mouth finds his, soft and questioning with an undercurrent of desperation. One of Pete’s eyebrows falls, and it seems insignificant but it’s enough for Patrick to melt into Pete’s hands on his back, exhale the apprehension, and let his shoulders fall. He brushes his mouth against Pete’s, simple syrup sweet. “Since you can do this now, this is— this is what I was missing,” and then because it’s too much honesty, “This is how bad you want in my pants.” 

“Yeah,” Pete says against Patrick’s mouth, and the stutter in his voice reveals evidence that he’s only partially teasing. “Tell me what you want, I’ll do anything,”Patrick presses a lop-sided smirk into the corner of Pete’s mouth, and when Pete absolutely beams with it, Patrick briefly considers stripping his clothes and climbing into Pete’s lap right there. He misses his own revelation that he’d take Pete home with him regardless of his motivation to the feeling of Pete’s tongue against his teeth. 

“Thanks,” they tell the driver in unison outside of Pete’s apartment building. Patrick shoves a crumpled ten dollar bill at the driver, an excess of money for the three blocks between the Met and the apartment, and Pete pulls him through the front entrance of the building and up the short staircase to the door of his apartment by the short tails on the front of Patrick’s shirt, displaced from where they’d been neatly tucked into Patrick’s jeans at the beginning of the night. 

The door slams behind them, echoing in the tiny entryway, and his mouth centimeters from Pete’s face, unable to persuade his fingers away from Pete’s shoulders, Patrick finds himself nearly too far gone to propose moving the evening’s activities to the bedroom. _I want you right here,_ Patrick almost says, but he stops Pete’s hand with his fingers wrapped around Pete’s wrist and hears himself say with much less sex appeal, “Can we just go—? I want— your room?” 

Pete says against his ear, “Like I would ever pass that up.” 

Patrick laughs against his shoulder and tightens his arms around Pete’s neck for Pete to slide his hands along the back of Patrick’s thighs, strong enough to hike Patrick’s knees over his hips. Chest and mouth pressed to Patrick’s, Pete ambles through his apartment like he has time to waste, despite Patrick’s encouragements and impatient noises, focused on the feeling of _making up for lost time_ and ignoring the reflex of _just right._

“Let me go,” Pete mumbles as he lowers them both to his unmade bed, and Patrick shakes his head, no, refuses to stop touching him, and lets Pete strip them out of clothes, with the exception of Patrick’s briefs, with a practiced ability somehow not lost on two years. It’s not until Pete pushes him backward gently, further into the knots of bedsheets that all smell like Pete’s shampoo and faintly of aftershave that the apprehension resurfaces, and Patrick reels between shoving Pete off of him or clinging until he can breathe again. A little breathless himself, Pete asks, “What’s wrong?” 

Patrick is good at lying. He’s well-practiced in white lies and educated in omitting the incriminating details, and it would be too easy to say that nothing is wrong, that he’s just tired and out of practice, but Pete stares at him with dark eyes and an expression of genuine concern and Patrick falls back against the sheets and tries desperately not to think about Mikey. He admits, “This is awkward.” He feels stiff, brittle, and Pete visibly looks over his collarbones and with unfocused eyes and his tongue between his teeth. Pete makes a small sound with his tongue and a few strands of hair tucked behind his ear fall into his face. Patrick twists his fingers in Pete’s exposed top sheet. “Are you nervous?” 

Pete laughs under his breath. He concedes, “A little. Are you?” 

Patrick hums in agreement. 

“It’s okay,” Pete tells them both. Fingers curled around Patrick’s jaw, equally soft and possessive, Pete kisses his chin, his cheek, the side of his nose, anything but Patrick’s mouth. “Do you want to take this slow?” 

Patrick’s fingers close around the back of Pete’s knee. He makes a soft noise and replies cautiously, “I don’t know how—” 

“Yeah,” Pete says, understanding without needing clarification. “We’ll go as slow as we can.” 

Patrick huffs out a laugh. “We’re still—” 

Pete’s hands slide to Patrick’s chest, thumbs over a nipple he’s only (recently) thought about putting his mouth on while bored in the shower. “If you want,” he says, and wants. 

“I want,” Patrick assures him, shifting against Pete’s hands and Pete’s mouth against his hairline to shove his knee between Pete’s thighs. “But you have to remember that you’ve been doing this with Mikey all along, and I’ve—” Pete bites his earlobe, eliciting a reaction that would be embarrassing if Patrick couldn’t feel Pete’s dick twitch against his thigh. “I haven’t done this in, like—” 

Pete interrupts his brutal honesty session. “Let’s not talk about that right now. You are not what I was doing with—” He makes a noncommittal noise and it shouldn’t make Patrick’s chest grow hot, red like sunburn under Pete’s hands, but Patrick laughs.

Patrick doesn’t make him promise. “Let me,” he says instead, pushing at Pete’s shoulders until Pete lets him crawl over his thighs, and when Pete presses his thumbs into the dimples just above the swell of Patrick’s ass, Patrick’s hands fly to his waistband like it burns. He shoves his underwear around his thighs and lets Pete kiss him, filthily, one hand wrapped loosely around his cock, and then he’s mouthing down Pete’s chest, his stomach, before he finally wraps his sweltering mouth around the head of Pete’s cock. He twists his hand, makes a soft appreciative noise, and Pete’s brain supplies something fierce before he’s melting away to nothing under Patrick’s hands, and, _oh God,_ Patrick’s mouth.

Patrick picks him apart under mouth and hands, moans each time Pete presses into his tongue insuppressibly, and presses Pete’s ass back against the mattress with thumbs in the soft spot below his hips. Pete follows him with a chorus of expletives and pleasured noises, and Patrick pulls off just to whine, “Please,” before he swallows around Pete’s cock and glances up at Pete with wet eyes. 

Petting Patrick’s dampening hair in reverse, Pete swallows thickly, mumbles something that could be, “The most perfect,” or just, “Patrick,” and lets go, scarcely registering Patrick’s forearms pressed into his ribs or Patrick’s open mouth against his abdominals a moment later. 

“Please,” Patrick says again, this time against Pete’s collar while Pete pants into his hair. He grinds his cock against Pete’s warm hip, hands wrapped around Pete’s biceps like he’s afraid to let go. 

“I know,” Pete breathes as Patrick rubs against him. “Can I?” and Patrick nods, his face in Pete’s shoulder, before Pete rolls them over and folds his hand over Patrick’s cock, feeling Patrick’s teeth in his shoulder and the gasp inhaled against his skin. Pete kisses his ear once, twice, and then he’s sliding down Patrick’s body with hands on Patrick’s sides, ass, and the inside of his thighs. He leaves open-mouthed kisses over Patrick’s stomach. Patrick shoves a thumb into his mouth and whines. 

“Patrick,” Pete says into the point of his hip. He rubs his cheekbones into Patrick’s thigh, fingers wrapped gently around the back of Patrick’s knee, and watches Patrick’s eyelids flutter closed.

It’s a race for Pete to pull off all of his moves before Patrick crumbles completely; five years and Pete still gives head with mostly tongue, drooling around the length of Patrick’s dick, and Patrick washes down the moan torn from the back of his mouth with little avail. 

“Come on, be loud,” Pete growls, “Want to hear you.” He bites at Patrick’s stomach before he presses his tongue to the head of Patrick’s cock and takes him back down. Patrick cries out, just to feel Pete whine around him, and then he’s coming with Pete’s mouth still wrapped around his cock, choking on Pete’s name and the saliva he’s just inhaled. 

“Fuck,” Pete announces, and Patrick opens his eyes to Pete’s dumbstruck expression, swollen lower lip, and the remnants of Patrick’s orgasm in the corner of his mouth. Patrick grabs Pete’s hands in his own and kisses him then, obsessed with the little hum of affection Pete makes against his mouth and the exchange of his own salty taste under his tongue. Pete runs fingers over Patrick’s chest, through the fine hair there, and Pete thickly whispers, “I’ve been thinking— about you and how good we were together since— hard to stop thinking about it, actually.”

Patrick swallows hard and flushes crimson. “Yeah,” he agrees dumbly, his arms wrapped around Pete’s waist in a bed even messier than it had been when they started. The anxiety comes in pangs in the pit of his stomach but Patrick pushes it down to settle his chest against Pete’s, just as predicted, kiss Pete’s nose and the pink tips of Pete’s ears, and savor his afterglow. It lasts the five blissful minutes before he remembers the box of cigarettes in the pocket of his coat and has to ask, “Do you have a toothbrush I can use?” 

“I thought you had to go home tonight?” Pete asks him in a sleepy voice, draped over Patrick’s shoulders and staring at himself in the mirror minutes later. His fingers slide along the inside of Patrick’s thigh easily; he pulls Patrick’s shoulders closer. Patrick looks at him through the mirror, Pete’s shoulders just above his, but Pete is marveling at his own hand on Patrick’s chest. Pete catches his eyes in the mirror and visibly suppresses a smile. “You know what this looks like?” 

_Amateur porn,_ Patrick thinks. Toothpaste drips from the corner of his mouth and Patrick wipes at it with the back of his hand and goes back to brushing his teeth. _You’d think they might like each other._

♥

“Hayley,” Patrick says into the phone the following morning. He stands at the Mass Ave train station between a man in a very expensive suit and a woman mumbling to herself and carrying an umbrella despite the windy and dry October weather. He cups his hand over the microphone. “Can you meet me for breakfast?”

She sounds both pleased with herself and pleasantly surprised. “Sure,” she quips. “Where?”

Patrick thinks for a moment. He still hasn’t completely readjusted to the Boston public transportation system even after six months and has to orient himself before he can come up with the closest and the most convenient place for Hayley to meet him for breakfast. “I don’t know,” he says eventually. “The Symphony Pavement? I’m waiting for the train right now.”

She says again, “Sure. What train? How was your weekend?”

Patrick can hear the wink added at the end of Hayley’s questions. His chest tightens as he switches his phone from one ear to the other. “Good, I slept over at—” he says quickly, almost a whisper, and becomes suddenly aware of the woman with the umbrella’s eavesdropping. “Fuck, I’ll tell you at breakfast.”

The train arrives soon after with the usual squealing brakes and ear-splitting ringing bell, and Patrick spends the short ride from Mass Ave to Huntington thinking of how Pete had kissed him goodbye earlier that morning, smug and pliable and looking ready to fall right back to sleep as soon as Patrick’s mouth leaves his, and how if he’d been forced to place his bets Thursday night, he would have played fifty-fifty on ending up with his face in Pete’s underarm by Sunday morning. He’s prepared for Hayley’s silent disapproval, the slight disappointment threaded into her nosiness. He sees her bite her lip and stare past his head, unsurprised and expecting a full report, in his mind’s eye and assembles the slew of excuses that follow it. A younger Patrick might find himself blameless, but as he stands just inside the door of an indiscriminate car of the Orange line and tries not to listen to the mumbling woman sitting beside him, Patrick considers that he’s only gotten better at developing circumstances for which he later could not possibly be considered at fault. He tries not to be amused.

As expected, Patrick arrives at the café before Hayley. He takes their usual space, a tiny round table in the corner free of open ears, and vows not to leave it until Hayley appears in— Patrick peers at his watch— five minutes.

“I refuse to believe that you got here from Chelsea that fast,” she says fifteen minutes later. She sets Patrick’s coffee and sandwich on the table surface and pulls the plastic cover off her coffee to reveal a half-inch of steaming latte foam. She peels back the tin foil from her breakfast sandwich and after studying it, submerges her sandwich halfway into the top of her coffee.

“That’s disgusting,” Patrick informs her.

She ignores him, chewing on a massive bite of egg and bagel soaked in coffee. “Talk to me about your weekend. You look tired, did you sleep?”

“Yes, actually,” is Patrick’s weak retort. “I thought I was having a boring night in on Friday but then Pete invited me to go drink at the Met, so—” Patrick’s hand darts from his lap to grab for his sandwich, “And Victoria’s already trying to get me to move to New York again, so that’s a fun new development.”

“Unsurprising,” Hayley answers drily. “What’s the end of the Met story?”

“Oh, we hooked up.”

Hayley abruptly laughs. “Like _hooked up_ hooked up, or like—?” She shrugs with her arms outstretched and wrinkles her nose.

Patrick wonders what it’s like not to have a friend like Hayley, overly invested in his life, to internalize the best of his hook-ups and sexual escapades instead of discussing them in public over coffee, not to call her from someone else’s bathroom floor to tell her he can’t figure out how to use their shower and he’s not about to ask. He takes a suggestive sip from the top of his coffee cup, and Hayley leans across the table, touches his hand wrapped around the disposable plastic coffee cup, gentle enough to be off-putting, and makes a face of maternal disappointment.

“Why are you not freaking out about this?”

“What do you mean? I called you, like, the second I left this morning, and the only reason I didn’t call you earlier was because I was busy, so tell me—”

“Twice,” Hayley mouths across the table, and insists, “Tell me everything. When? I won’t tell Erin.”

Patrick doesn’t believe her but he grins and sets his coffee back onto the table. “Last night, late, and then before I called you this morning. This morning was better— like, last night was good but it was also like— I just wanted to rip off the Band-Aid so it was kind of—”

“Desperate?”

“—Rushed?” Patrick finishes, and takes a deep inhale, fully prepared to launch into a scene-by-scene analysis of this morning’s listless, languid mutual masturbation session.

There’s a sudden presence behind Patrick’s shoulder, and before he can look, Hayley says, “Hello, Gabe.”

Patrick feels his stomach drop, though he’s not sure why. If Gabe doesn’t know by now, he surely will be the end of the day, but the look Gabe had given him over the table at Pete’s birthday party hadn’t left him feeling particularly well-liked. Patrick is certain that Gabe thinks Pete is too good for him, despite being friends with both of them. Gabe grabs Patrick’s shoulders. “Hello,” he replies, and looks between them. “What are we talking about?”

“Your best friend’s sex life,” Hayley announces with salacious side-eye, and Patrick quickly shakes his head, concealing the prudish blush with a hand over his face.

“This is so embarrassing,” Patrick mutters. “This is so embarrassing for me.” Hayley smirks over the table, and Gabe grins down at him and gives him a condescending pat on the head.

Sounding truly let down, Gabe says, “I wish I could join you, but there’s a brunch happening at my house and I’m supposed to be there or something— another time.” Hayley tells him goodbye, and Patrick watches Gabe leave the coffee shop, still red in the face and realizing that he’s no longer hungry.

♥

Pete’s phone jumps when it vibrates with an incoming call on his bedside table. Still in bed, he cracks one eye open with a raised eyebrow and carefully eyes the phone. One arm extends from the bedsheets and snatches it from the bedside table. He’s slept almost until noon, a rare feat, and Pete reads the name on the screen and rolls his eyes. “You’re a master at timing,” he says against the microphone, “Just fucking incredible.”

“Talk about timing,” Gabe notes. “You’ll never guess who I saw at breakfast.”

It dawns on him suddenly, the careful undulation of a forming wave before it breaks over his head. Pete rolls his eyes for the second time in ten seconds and pulls his dirty sheets over his head. He thinks he might have a hangover as a result of the forthcoming conversation. Pete makes a noise of distasteful acceptance.

Gabe starts, “Let me remind you—”

“Yeah?”

“Rebound or buffer period.”

Pete says, “Should I go fuck myself or are you going to come over and do it yourself?”

♥

Life gets in the way of their future Friday night plans. Victoria transplants Patrick to New York for a week as soon as her associate agrees to sponsor a separate publication in the City, and Pete’s latest client charges hours and hours of work outside of regular hours, leading to long, tedious nights on the computer and exhausting heated phone calls. 

With no Mikey and no Patrick for the week, Pete writes. He writes as a substitute for sleeping and upholding his usual adult responsibilities, like laundry and doing the dishes. He makes corrections for his editor, sends pieces of his latest to his sister, and writes like he exhales oxygen-depleted air. It’s cathartic; Gabe suggests a rebound but Pete purges Mikey in pages, says fuck it all, and starts again. It’s exhausting, but the good exhausted, the kind that only comes from self-satisfaction and spending time dedicated to oneself. He doesn’t regret the break-up with Mikey, and though he’s not exactly thrilled with how he’s left the situation with Patrick, it doesn’t leave him sleepless either. 

In New York City, Patrick bookends a week of meetings with the monthly release at the front and the New York publishing deal at the back, and by the end, he thinks of only his own bed and how badly he wants a drink, or half a box of cigarettes, or better, to sprawl across Pete’s lap and smoke until he’s too high to think. Instead, he gets a poorly timed phone call. 

Patrick stares at himself shaving in the hotel bathroom mirror and peers into the rest of the room, at the hours of work that needs to be completed before tomorrow’s mid-morning meeting and his take-out quickly going cold on the desk. He lets his gaze fall to his phone on the counter, Pete’s name on the screen and the stopwatch tallying the seconds of how long they’ve been on the phone. The number to beat, forty-four minutes and eleven seconds. Pete calls him when he’s feeling claustrophobic, when he spends too much time in the office and takes work home to finish in his South End apartment— big by apartment standards but still under-stimulating. The calls come more often as the weather gets colder and the sun sets earlier in the afternoon. 

In the kitchen of said South End apartment, Pete shoves the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. He mumbles around it, “Gabe doesn’t want to have a birthday party this year. He’s having a Halloween party instead,” and reaches for the handle on the refrigerator door with his phone pressed to his ear. 

“My God,” Patrick says in true disbelief. He laughs. “No, he isn’t.” 

“Is, too,” Pete retorts, “And you’re definitely invited.” 

“I’m not sure that I want to go.” 

“Yes, you do.” There’s nothing worth eating in the fridge, and Pete lets the door fall closed and goes to raid his cabinets instead. He swaps the phone from one ear to the other and emphasizes, “Think of who’s going to be there. All of Gabe’s weird friends. Brendon? The potential for drama is— outstanding.” 

“Yeah, I’m not sure I want to go.” 

“You have to come.” Pete whines. “I have to bring a date or else all of Gabe’s weird friends will hit on me— or, I mean, I like you the most and it would mean a lot if you wanted to come to Gabe’s party?” 

“Allegedly,” Patrick replies. “Your appeal to pity doesn’t work on me,” though it’s far from true. He catches his own stupid smile in the mirror and feels embarrassed, but it doesn’t stop him from thinking of Pete’s mouth on the soft skin of his collarbones. Patrick presses the fleshy part of his hips just below his navel to the edge of the counter and like his palms turn clammy in tandem with a cigarette craving, Patrick conjures the thought of Pete pulling the waistband of his boxers to his thighs and taking him against the mirror and feels his hands go cold. He wipes his hands on his t-shirt and taking a shaky breath, says, “Not that I think I’m going to stop them.” 

Pete’s voice drops an octave. He retorts, “That’s fallacious.” 

Patrick stares into the void that is the drain in the sink and finishes, careful not to sound too committed, “I’ll think about it.” He feels Pete grin over the phone and pulls a stunted smile that makes his chest twist. He sounds breathless, distracted, when he continues, “This New York thing’s been a fucking disaster.” 

Patrick sits on the countertop to finish shaving and leans as close as he can to the mirror. He exchanges his phone for the flat razor on the counter and hears Pete ask, “Yeah? Tell me about it.” 

♥

Patrick arrives to Gabe’s party well after dark, determined to miss out on the awkward intermingling period before Gabe’s guests are drunk, when they can still recognize the faces of others with some help from a back porch light. It’s a packed house, and Patrick recognizes soon after arriving that he knows no one, and shortly makes it his mission to find Pete and ask if he wants to leave, preferably together. _All I do is go to Gabe’s parties and look for people,_ Patrick concludes.

He’d drawn cat whiskers on himself with a cheap eyeliner crayon before he left the house, ironically of course, and dressed in all black, a subconscious attempt to make himself as unidentifiable as possible. The list of people he’d like to convene with is much shorter than the list of people he’s hoping to avoid, which includes all of Gabe’s friends, anyone who knew Pete in college, and himself in any reflective surface. 

Patrick helps himself to a drink from the refrigerator and commences the hunt for Pete. It begins in the kitchen doorway when Patrick bumps into someone he vaguely recognizes from Pete’s work parties years ago. Dark hair and pale skin, the man grins to reveal fake fangs and a tongue blue from Jello shots, and he must be capable of mental manipulation, because Patrick finds himself consuming two Berry Blue shots of vodka before he can ask, “Have you seen Pete?” 

“Do you want a drink?” the man yells over Wild Cherry’s _The Lady Wants Your Money._

“Have you seen Gabe?” Patrick shouts back, and is immediately handed a mix of grape soda and tequila. It smells sickly sweet like the cough syrup his grandparents fed him in large quantities as a child, and Patrick takes the plastic cup with a reluctant smile, lips pressed together. He asks again, “Have you seen Pete?” 

“Outside,” the man replies. He reaches for a store-brand liter bottle of lemonade on the counter, and Patrick leaves before he can be offered anything else. 

As it turns out, Pete is nowhere to be found outside, but Gabe lounges in a lawn chair much too close to an open flame for comfort, a joint in one hand and a plastic cup similar to Patrick’s in the other. He is entirely unaware of anyone around him, and Patrick approaches like one would approach a wounded animal, slow and cautious. 

Gabe’s head snaps up from its recline against the lawn chair. He eyes Patrick carefully and mumbles after a moment, “If you’re looking for Pete, I can’t find him.” 

Predictable, Patrick is, in some ways. “Have you seen him?” 

Gabe considers the question for an unreasonably long time. “He was out here earlier, might have gone upstairs, which— you can just pass out upstairs whenever,” Gabe informs him after gesturing sporadically with his cup, and actually, that sounds pretty good right now— better than the alternative, puking up grape soda in the back of an Uber on the way home to Chelsea. Patrick nods, and Gabe twirls the blunt between his fingers. “You want this?” 

“I’ve been drinking.” Patrick cowers into his coat, looking thoroughly miserable.

It’s Gabe’s turn to nod. “Your cat whiskers look pretty cute.” 

“Thank you,” Patrick snaps. 

Gabe considers him for another moment, the slight grimace and the haze starting to slide over his face from the alcohol. “Try upstairs,” he says finally, “Or ask someone inside.”

Patrick clambers up the steps of Gabe’s back porch and finds two women sitting and exchanging cigarettes at the bottom of the stairwell. Inarguably tipsy, Patrick looks between them and the stairs behind them and debates whether the challenge of climbing the stairs is worth it. He opens his mouth to speak, and one of the girls laughs. 

“Did you need something?” the other asks. 

“Sure,” Patrick says. “Have you seen Pete?” 

She eyes him carefully and stabs the end of her cigarette into the corner of her mouth. Her fingers are smeared with a sickly pale foundation and red lipstick when she takes them from her face, and she flips her hair over her shoulder with the same hand. “Pete who?” she says around the cigarette. Patrick lets his eyes flicker to her mouth habitually; she laughs. “Want one of these?” 

The smell of her cheap cigarette in the cramped space makes him feel slightly nauseous, more than the streak of red lipstick in her bleached-blonde hair or the sound of a stranger retching on the opposite side of the foyer. Patrick shakes his head and clarifies, “Pete Wentz?” 

The girl glances casually at her friend nearby, struggling with a lighter and her own cigarette, and smirks. Her friend says, as if the tidbit is last week’s news, “He left with Ryan.” 

“Oh,” the blonde woman says, turning back to Patrick. “I think he left.” 

The itching feeling of shame blooms from Patrick’s lower back to his hairline. Feeling lucky that the partial darkness conceals his embarrassed blush, Patrick thanks the women and nudges past them, humbled and flustered. “Excuse me,” he mutters, and the woman shifts less than an inch. Patrick steps on the strap of her bag, apologizes profusely, and swallows the dirty look he gets in return. 

Patrick tries to be cognizant of anyone already asleep upstairs as he stomps up the stairs, desperately attempting to keep quiet. The ascension is exhausting and Patrick holds himself upright with a firm grasp on the banister at the top of the stairs, suddenly aware of how much worse he’s become at handling three and a half drinks. The realization of just how drunk he really is hits him at the same time as the wave of real nausea from the smell of cheap cigarettes wafting up the stairs, and Patrick narrowly avoids vomiting on the top step. He takes a moment to catch his breath, leaning over the railing, and then stumbles towards the first doorway in the short hallway, knocks, and twists the doorknob. 

There’s no wide expanse of skin or obvious display of sex, just Pete’s face pressed close to the face of a brown-haired stranger and his hand curled around the back of Pete’s thigh, the other shoved between them. It’s nothing more than some enthusiastic heavy petting, both of them too plastered to participate in any real semblance of sex, but the intent is indisputable. Pete makes a recognizable breathy noise, the one that sounds as if it’s being pulled out from just above his diaphragm with a pair of hemostats, and Patrick stiffens, face burning and head pounding. He slams the bedroom door for emphasis and stumbles down the hallway to the other room, still blushing.

He’s upset with Pete, but mostly he’s angry at himself— for being unrealistic, for keeping his feelings to himself long enough to witness the opposing action, for acting on a pre-meditated hook-up that Pete clearly hadn’t stressed over. Already sniveling, Patrick thinks about calling Hayley but doesn’t want the lecture, her offer to come accompany him home, and the awkward silence on the ride back to her apartment. A change in playlists downstairs shakes Patrick from his thoughts, and Patrick kicks open the bathroom adjacent to Gabe’s guest bedroom and reaches for the faucet.

Patrick scrubs at the eyeliner on his face with his hands, using the bar of hand soap he’d grabbed from the soap dish on the bathroom counter. He thinks about eating part of it as a punishment, like his mother had told him that other parents did to kids who had it worse than he did, but spares himself the childish humiliation. It feels like wax, is probably decorative, and smells like a hospital lobby, but if the soap doesn’t work, the shear force he uses to wipe at his face sends drops of water dyed grey dripping into the sink and running into the drain. The faucet runs hot and his face feels raw, but Patrick refuses to look at himself in the mirror, already well-accustomed to his puffy under-eyes and swollen mouth. They don’t look better with a feverish blush. 

Washing his face leaves rivulets of black grit inside the sink. Patrick does his best to rinse it down the sink, cupping water in his hands and mopping at the streaks with his fingers until they look like dotted lines instead of Sharpie marker. He wipes at his eyes and nose with the back of his hand and dries his face on a white hand towel, and after noticing the spots of black now staining the toweling, Patrick folds it inside out and hangs it back on the towel holder.

“Shit,” Patrick says to himself, still sniffling. He surveys the bathroom and, satisfied that he’s concealed most of the evidence of his drunken tantrum, Patrick pulls his shoes off and leaves them on the white tiled floor alongside his jeans, and crawls between the covers of Gabe’s guest bedroom. 

_November, Year VI_

Pete eats an egg fried in butter over Gabe’s counter for breakfast on the first of November. Ryan sits slumped over the counter beside him, and though Ryan looks miserable, Pete feels better than he ever has the morning after drinking and concludes after pouring a glass of water down the inside of his pants, that he must still be drunk. Gabe stares at him from the other side of the counter, now fully sober from his one joint and responsible drinking, and says, “I can’t get Brendon off my fucking couch.” 

Pete looks up from his breakfast. “I’ve been there. He’ll leave eventually.”

“As long as he’s alive,” Ryan mumbles, and Pete and Gabe exchange a concerned look. 

It is at this moment that Patrick enters the kitchen, looking his worst and fully prepared to sprint out of Gabe’s front door. The ensemble at the counter watches him as a matched set, and feeling ostracized, Patrick offers, “Hey— looks like everyone had fun last night.” 

Pete appears enamored with his breakfast, and after a piercing glance at him, Gabe sighs. “Patrick,” Gabe starts. “This is Ryan.” 

Ryan’s naturally wide eyes grow rounder, and Patrick feels his shoulders creep up to his ears. “Wait,” Ryan says, as if he’s solved a great mystery. “The same one that Pete’s always fucking around with?” 

Pete flinches. From the doorway, Patrick visibly stiffens, and Pete blurts out like a bad confession, “I’m very much still drunk.” 

Ryan laughs, and Pete barely has time to register the scowl on Patrick’s face before he shoves his hands in his pockets and steps through the kitchen to the front hallway. The hurt look on Patrick’s face hits Pete like a punch to the stomach, and Pete refuses to acknowledge Gabe’s knowing look. 

“I’ll be right back,” Pete mumbles, and follows Patrick like a shadow out the door. Patrick walks faster, elongates his steps if only to decrease the time it takes to breach the exit of the house. His footsteps sound with increasing frequency off the walls of the hallway and give the illusion of being chased— he supposes he is. He takes the front hall in three steps, slams the heavy door behind him, and steps outside to meet the car he’d called minutes earlier to take him home. His driver is already waiting in the offensive sunlight outside, but Pete catches up to him before he can approach the car, his hand fisted in the sleeve of Patrick’s shirt. Patrick wrestles himself from Pete’s grasp, and slaughters Pete with one dirty look. 

“Why would you tell him that?” Patrick asks sharply. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Why would you tell him we were fucking around before I moved back, and _why_ would you spend your night fucking with Ryan when I’m right there?” He knows it’s hypocritical, that he’d been noncommittal about going, and comes out whining. He wipes at his face, the phantom eyeliner still on his cheeks, and reaches for the car door. 

Pete thinks for a quick moment, eyebrows furrowed together, and then knowing he owes Patrick an apology, “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t think—” 

“You didn’t think? I don’t want people to know!”

“I didn’t know it was a secret!” Patrick is quiet, and Pete asks, “People who? Who would know now that hasn’t known we’ve been doing this weird half-friends thing for years?” 

Patrick swallows his hurt expression. “I get it. I get it and I’m going home,” he says sharply, and snatches his hand away when Pete reaches for his arm. “Don’t.” Patrick grapples with the car door and throws himself into the backseat of the car. 

The driver glances at him through the rearview mirror. “Quite the party last night,” he says, adjusting the mirror. “Did you have a good night?” 

“That’s an intimate question, isn’t it?” Patrick remarks. Denial is often much more revealing than one intends it to be. 


	23. In which Patrick goes to confession, kind of.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I left the light in my heart on in case you ever wanted to come back home.”_ — Lennon Hodson

_November, Year VI.II_

“You can call me later,” Patrick informs Pete from inside the car. “You know, when you’re feeling better.” He reaches over the edge of the sidewalk and pulls the car door closed. It slams beside him, though not hard enough, and Patrick holds it together long enough for the driver pull away from the curb before he descends into sniffles in the backseat.

This is not how Patrick had envisioned the morning of November first. The hangover is an inevitable consequence of a Halloween gathering at Gabe’s, but he could do without the wet eyelashes, the snotty nose, and the feeling of dread that’s been clawing at the pit of his stomach since eleven the night before. He needs a distraction, someone to commiserate with, and with his brightness turned down as far as it will go and his eyes squinted halfway shut, Patrick types out a long message to Hayley, deletes the whole paragraph, and instead settles on, _Fuck me and especially fuck Pete!!_ It’s unsubtle and it gets the point across.

The morning is grey and looks cold outside the window of the car, but it’s still too bright for Patrick’s searing headache, and Patrick drops his face against the window and concentrates on not vomiting on the floor mats. Logically, he wants to think that Pete wouldn’t do anything that hurtful on purpose. He’s never known Pete to be one who would go for revenge fucking with a stranger. There might have been an unlikely miscommunication, but the irrational part of his mind tells him he’s distanced himself from Pete indefinitely with the forced introduction and his spoiled outburst on the sidewalk— the same sidewalk on which he’d dared Pete to kiss him after Gabe’s birthday party in years previous. Patrick’s mind helpfully supplies the next two events in this sequence: Pete’s hands on his thighs pressing him back against the countertops, Pete’s tongue in the crease of his hip— and fuck, no, wrong party, wrong kiss, wrong unplanned-but-unavoidable sleepover. Patrick wipes his face carelessly on the back of his sleeve and ignores the driver’s concerned glances in the mirror.

His phone buzzes between his knees, and Patrick flips it over expecting a request for details from Hayley, but the screen lights up to read, _Nate said he misses working with you last night. He was very drunk. I thought you would want to know this_

Patrick smiles at it, ignoring the fireworks that go off behind his eyes as a result of moving his face. _That’s the nicest thing anyones ever said about me,_ Patrick writes in reply. _Can I call you?_ He wipes his face again and holds his breath, concerned that hearing William’s voice will be enough to signal a sudden onslaught of tears. William greets him comfortably and Patrick holds in a laugh, shocked every time by the familiarity he’s managed to maintain through the move and all of the complications coming with it.

William remarks, “How are you?”

Patrick catches the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror and feels suddenly like he’s being observed, a caged zoo animal. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. He twists in the seatbelt to lean his back against the door, draws his knees to his chest, and stacks the heel of one shoe on the toe of the other. “How was your day?”

♥

“Well,” Gabe announces when Pete returns inside, scrubbing at his face and otherwise looking no worse than he had when he’d stepped outside. “You look like that went about as well as I expected it would.”

Pete answers Gabe’s snide remark with a question. “Is Ryan still here? ‘Cause I’m going to fucking kill him if he is.”

Gabe peers around the kitchen and down the hallway to the front door, notably absent of Ryan. “I think he had the sense to leave, but you can go kick Brendon off my couch if you just need to tell someone to fuck off.” Pete sits back down at his place at Gabe’s counter, drops his face in his hands, and heaves a cathartic groan. Gabe looks over Pete’s crumpled t-shirt and missing belt, the one sock, and the untied shoe with intense judgment. He offers, “There’s Advil in the bathroom if you want it. You’re going to feel like shit later but maybe you’ll skip the worst of the hangover.”

“Oh, no,” Pete assures him, his eyes still pressed into his palms. “I feel like shit right now.” Gabe agrees and excuses himself to clean up outside. He reaches for the kitchen light as he leaves, and Pete requests shortly, “Don’t turn that light on, my head’s fucking killing me.”

Feeling like he needs to be a good friend to someone, Pete wanders upstairs soon after to fetch the aforementioned Advil and then lets himself stew in his self-attained misery until it starts to kick in. He washes his face in Gabe’s bathroom sink, feels slightly better after a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, and after inviting Brendon to exit the premises, Pete silently takes the initiative and corrals the collection of plastic cups on Gabe’s dining room table into the recycling. One cup spills over, leaving an unidentifiable green liquid leeching into the hardwood, and Pete pours the rest down the sink and whispers to himself with emphasis beneath the roar of the garbage disposal, “Fuck Halloween.”

It takes the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon for Pete to clean up the overwhelming amount of detritus that has accumulated in the house. He scrapes chewing gum off Gabe’s countertops with a cutting knife, vacuums the crumbs off the couch and the dirt off the floor, and takes the garbage out to the bins on the curb, and when he’s satisfied with his work for the afternoon, Pete drags the quilt off the guest bedroom upstairs and lies down on the couch to sleep off the rest of the alcohol. It smells mostly of Gabe’s guest bedroom and slightly of Ryan Ross.

♥

Patrick spends most of his afternoon waiting on a phone call that doesn’t come. It doesn’t come because Pete had decided to assist in the after-party clean-up, though this is unbeknownst to Patrick. He wastes the afternoon fighting off a migraine and responding to emails that have no reason for a reply before Monday morning, and by eight in the evening, Patrick has virtually given up on the call. Maybe Pete had thought he was being sarcastic. He grinds his teeth together, elects not to participate in whatever game of wait-and-see that Pete has constructed, and cautiously sends Pete, _I’m going to Hayley’s. I’ll call you tomorrow._

Over Hayley’s kitchen island, Patrick rests his face in his hand and traces the rim of foam in his mug with his eyes. Hayley has made him a cup of tea, which has long gone cold on her pink kitchen countertops. Much of Hayley’s new Cambridge apartment is pink— the countertops, the drapery, the bathroom walls, the inside of her front door, and though it had been accosting at first glance, Patrick has learned to love it like he loves Hayley, with the same purposeful dedication that Hayley shows him when he’s feeling less than blessed. He is currently feeling less than blessed.

Patrick’s phone buzzes on the counter and they both give it a singular judging glance, as incriminating as it is curious. Patrick sighs and glances back to Hayley, resolving to ignore the interruption. She pulls a barstool out from under the island and perches on the edge. “Do you want me to be angry?”

“No,” Patrick grumbles.

“Have we considered that he’s crazy?” she advises. 

“Have we considered that I’m crazy?”

Hayley closes her hands around her own cup of tea (her second, still warm) and tilts her head from one side to the other, thinking. Patrick lets his face slide down his forearm until his forehead rests against the counter. “This is what being friends with Pete is going to be like,” she says to the top of his head. “Are you having fun yet?”

“I said I’d call him tomorrow.” Patrick’s phone gives another violent buzz.

Hayley touches his wrist across the counter. “Forget about it. Give it a week.”

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees, and because he’s never been an exceptionally patient person, reaches for his phone. “I should go home.” He flips the phone over and is disappointed in himself for being disappointed that the two texts are from his sister, an invite to Thanksgiving and an inquiry into whether he’d called his grandparents lately.

♥

Still parked on Gabe’s couch, Pete reads Patrick’s latest message until it disintegrates into a string of nonsense. If nothing else, it means that Patrick isn’t finished with him, and though it sounds laughable then, it’s the best scenario he could have hoped for. He reads the message again, and comes up with, _tomorrow when?_ It sounds painful to wait to find out. Pete glances at the digital clock glowing green below Gabe’s television and turns his attention back to his messages. _I’m going to Hayley’s,_ Patrick’s text reads. It’s nearing eleven and Pete has definitely overstayed his welcome, so he leaves the house without saying goodbye and goes to find Patrick. Pete is near certain he knows where to find him.

It’s not until he’s sitting in the usual traffic on Storrow Drive that he realizes two things. The first is the sheer amount of time he spends in his car, stressed about the inevitable traffic, a deadline for work, a relationship that feels like the limp arm dangling from a broken shoulder, or often all three at once. He’s easily wasted days. The second realization is much more incriminating, that Patrick is unlikely to welcome a surprise public confrontation, and Pete forces himself not to think of it until he shoves the gearshift into park in the lot of the T station nearest to Hayley’s new apartment, an address he’d copied off a note in Erin’s handwriting from Gabe’s refrigerator.

Patrick stands on the sidewalk at the bottom of the subway platform, shrugged into his coat and fidgeting with his pockets. The lights reflecting off the water a hundred feet away illuminate only half of Patrick’s face and body, but it’s more than enough to see that he would rather be left alone. Pete watches him scuff the toes of his shoes against the sidewalk and rub his hands together, a nervous habit or a safeguard against the cold. Patrick reaches deep into the pocket of his jeans, produces a lighter and cigarette barely visible from the car, and lights the cigarette with the lighter and the stick in the same hand. It’s an old party trick, one that Patrick had taught him in the front seat of the car while high after a winter show, but alone it looks washed up; Pete watches Patrick entertain himself through the windshield of the car until the window fogs up, listening to the sporadic overhead subway announcements, and thinks he’s never admired anymore’s dedication to authenticity more.

The platform is as dimly lit as it is freezing, a flat expanse white with salt from the premature overnight freeze and littered at the edges with disintegrating cigarette butts. The wind is biting off the water, blowing bits of ice and sand off the sidewalk and into the folds of Pete’s jeans, and despite dressing warmly, Pete is cold. He closes the door to his car as quietly as he can and steps over the subway platform to the sidewalk below.

Pete approaches him like a wounded animal. He shivers and guesses that Patrick must be freezing waiting for the late train, resists the urge to throw his arms around Patrick’s shoulders and pull him into his chest, and instead pulls his hood over his head and his shoves his hands into his pockets, his shoulders lifted like he’s trying to bury himself in his jacket. He stops at the top of the stairs and says with an undertone of fondness only Patrick can discern, “You know you shouldn’t smoke those. They’re terrible for you.” It takes a moment to become aware that he’s near yelling against the wind.

Patrick doesn’t look at him, doesn’t offer a shocked expression or even a half-assed glance, but he does reply, “Trying to quit.” He takes a drag off the cigarette and refuses to take Pete’s invitation for eye contact. “Did Hayley tell you I was leaving, that I’d be here?” 

“No. It was just a really fucking good guess.” Patrick hums, and they’re silent for a moment. Pete inhales, pushes hair from his face against the wind, and makes a haphazard attempt to string words together. “It’s fucking cold out here. I was worried I’d miss you.”

“You didn’t.”

“No,” Pete says again.

“I’m getting on the next train.” 

“Fine,” Pete says in return, and at the time, he means it. “Can we talk?” Patrick eyes him from the side and it’s as much of a yes as Pete could hope to get. He continues, “Look, I’m sorry about the Ryan thing. I’m really sorry, but also I’m not, because with the breakup with Mikey and then you— Gabe told me I needed to do something else after Mikey, and — fuck Gabe, I know, fuck him— but he’s fucking right. I need those to be two separate things, and I know you’re angry but—”

Patrick straightens then, one hand clenched in a fist by his side and the other still fingering his lit cigarette. “You were an asshole to me at that party,” Patrick states with newfound confidence. “I wanted you to go to the party with me, like, _with me_ , and you were a fucking asshole to me and you know it.” He fumbles with the cigarette and inhales again. 

“I know, but—” Pete’s threadbare optimism for a cliched, honest conversation is promptly drowning in Patrick’s prickly looks and cold presuppositions. He’d been hoping for transparency, not an open confrontation from a still-livid Patrick experiencing nicotine withdrawals. They’ve barely spoken and Pete is already tired of arguing, optimism now descending into a fleeting hope that their encounter doesn’t end in a fistfight— Patrick is endlessly stubborn when he wants to be (always) and Pete is teetering on the edge of letting his emotions get the best of him. Pete fumbles for words around a slurry of back-handed insults and vicious truths he could throw back in Patrick’s direction, rapidly mulls over Patrick’s unfair expectations for their weird rekindled relationship, and comes up with, “Sometimes I think I get to be an asshole about this.” 

Patrick heaves an eye roll. “Please don’t make this about that. I don’t want to fight with you about that all the time. We talked about it.” 

“About that,” Pete echoes. “How do I not make everything about that? Patrick, overreacting to Ryan knowing that we fucked around before you moved is about _that._ Why can’t Ryan know we fucked every weekend before you left me here? That is regular friend gossip. Is it that fucking embarrassing?” Pete makes an abrupt hand gesture. His accidental confessions are becoming a habit, Pete thinks, displeased. The first time could be attributed to his reaction to Mikey’s quiet rage, somehow more terrifying than any wild tantrum, two times is a coincidence, and three times is— Pete notes that he should consult an independent third party. Nonetheless, Pete unearths a two-year grudge from where he’s buried it deep, visible to everyone but himself, and regret is a sinister word to attach to something that had been fun and innocent at one point, even if it had ended in an ugly bout of heartbreak for both parties, but it’s tempting when paired with the newly realized resentment Pete has for being left in Boston with an unreasonable promise of his ‘see you later.’ It all seems brutally unfair to both of them, and Pete composes himself and hears himself say, “Maybe we were better before the break. Maybe we shouldn’t have—” 

“Maybe we shouldn’t have.” There’s another moment of silence between them, growing more awkward by the millisecond, before Patrick reveals,“It’s not that he knows, it’s that no matter of how you feel about me moving to Italy and back, you don’t get to tell anyone anything I told you in private just because you’re pissed at me, and you definitely don’t get to tell anyone about us or anything we did together!” 

Against his better judgment, Pete laughs. “Okay, respectfully— you’re only half of this, you know. I’ll tell whoever the fuck I want about what we’ve done together because it’s my business.”

“That doesn’t mean you should! Why can’t you just admit you fucked up?”

The Red line train heading north rattles into the station behind Pete. Patrick takes a determined step towards the stairs, explicit in its intent, and suddenly panicked, Pete starts, “No, just wait, you’re going to miss it anyway.” Patrick stares at him, wide-eyed and angry. “There’ll be another one. It’s the train, there’s always going to be another one,” Pete assures him, and is soon after accompanied by a damning and distorted overhead announcement.

“Attention passengers, the last Red line train to —Alewife— is now boarding.” 

“Fuck,” Patrick barks. “Pete!” 

Patrick stomps his foot. Pete presses his knuckles of his thumbs into the inner corner of his eyes. “Oh my god,” he mumbles, defeated. “I can get you a ride home, can you just hang on a second?” 

Patrick gives him a practiced dirty look. “I can get my own fucking car.” 

The station threatens to descend into another bout of silence, and with his knees shaking, Pete crosses his arms over his chest and lowers himself to the stairs. The steps are frigid and unforgiving, and Pete can’t tell if he’s warmer out of the wind or colder pressed against the concrete. “You should just hit me,” Pete tells him finally. “You should just hit me, because you clearly want to. Fucking or fighting, what’s the fucking difference?” He pauses, conscious thought obscured by a flood of unnamed emotions, and then he’s laughing over his touching outburst of romantic nihilism, because what else is there to do? “Come on, Patrick, this is— this is so stupid, it’s exhausting. If you want to call me on my shit, just do it.” 

Pete anticipates an explosive response, but fingers locked around his cigarette, Patrick grinds his teeth together around his tongue in a hasty attempt to swallow his emotions. He lifts his hand to his mouth and visibly sighs, shooting a pleading glance in Pete’s direction. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”

Pete laughs, sympathetic. He hunches further into his coat, quickly numbing from the outside in. “No. If you didn’t want to talk about it, you would have left already, and there’s no one else here.” Patrick is silent, and Pete announces, “I’ll go first, then. You’re way too old to still have a lying habit.” 

Patrick stiffens and threatens a smirk. “You have made no new friends after graduating from college.” 

“Yeah, probably,” Pete concedes, “But I haven’t heard much about William or Nate lately.” 

“I talked to him this morning. You sold-out your childhood dreams because your parents gave you financial anxiety and you hate your job.” 

“Incorrect,” Pete counters. “I wrote and sold a book. I only sometimes hate my job. You run from anything that could be good for you.” 

“When’s the last time you went a day without calling your mother?” 

“Your romantic relationships might be a little more successful if you stopped looking for a replacement parental figure.” 

Patrick is not charmed by this. “You say you want to keep your relationships separate but you ruined your relationship with Mikey because he wasn’t me.” It’s a low blow, confident, and probably not one-hundred-percent true, but it does the trick.

Pete hums and Pete catches Patrick’s apologetic glance only momentarily before he drops his face into his hands and breathes against the queasy feeling that turns his stomach. Pete sits on the stairs with his forehead pressed to his palms, lost for words, and thinks somewhere in the mess of synapses and electrical currents constructing his consciousness, that the only people capable of hitting where it hurts are the same people who love him the most. His hands feel empty and his chest feels tight and in the moment, Pete understands the temptation the pick up a cigarette. 

“See you next weekend?” Patrick conjectures. His voice is even, undisturbed. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” 

From beneath his hands, Pete only says, “Yeah. Sure.” 

Patrick grinds the end of his cigarette out on the concrete before he flicks it into the top of the nearest garbage can and stuffs his freezing hands back into his pockets. He gives Pete a silent unnoticed inspection from the bottom of the stairs and disappears into the oblate obfuscations of the sidewalk. He spends the $12.64 from his own checking account on a car home and while waiting for the ride, wonders if he’d be any more likely to be murdered if he walked.

♥

Friday night, Patrick is nothing more than an accumulation of nerves built up during the week. The day at the office had felt everlasting, and as he stares at himself in the mirror while brushing his teeth, Patrick notes with defeat the dark circles under his eyes and his red cheeks, dry from the cold. He looks tired and bitter and not at all like the charming and rosy character he fears Pete fell _in Like_ with. He tells himself it doesn’t matter, that they’re bigger than that, and hopes that one of them believes it. It still feels like a break-up.

The Christmas music already playing overhead in the Prudential Center as he walks to meet the train is unbearable, his train card gets stuck in the turnstile, and it’s hot and stuffy on the train in juxtaposition with the cold and wet weather outside. The atmosphere of the train is only made worse by the sheer number of people who have decided to take the T on this particular Friday night, and instead of thinking of the conversation looming ahead, Patrick concedes with reluctance that he should probably invest in a car. He wedges himself between a sleeping woman and a child no older than eight, and tolerates the child kicking his ankles until he can’t take it anymore, considering it an act of self-flagellation. He stands awkwardly, now between two men arguing over which of them is responsible for last weekend’s DUI, and mumbles an excuse to stand near the door. He never welcomes Boston’s freezing air as much as he does stepping off the T. 

On Pete’s doorstep, fingers reaching for the doorbell, Patrick is at the apex of his nerves. Hayley was right, as she usually is, about giving it a week, but in the aftermath of the previous weeks, he feels embarrassed and a little guilty, close to calling it all off and telling Pete he’s sorry for wasting his time, that it’s kinder to Pete in the end. Patrick presses the doorbell and steps back to bounce on his toes, waiting for Pete to let him in with a heavy smile and a sense of uncertainty. The doorbell rings once, and then twice, with no answer. He rings the doorbell a third time and after a few minutes, leaves a message in Pete’s voicemail. Out of ideas, Patrick scans the street curb for Pete’s car and finding nothing, pulls the hood of his raincoat over his head and sits down on the wet steps to wait. 

Patrick waits a long and dark half of an hour. The freezing rain turns to sleet eventually, fat grey crystal networks descending through frigid air to leave the sidewalks slick with a dense carpet of ice, and Patrick brushes the worst of it from his jeans and checks his watch before he tucks his hands inside his coat, sniveling against the cold. He pulls his knees in as close to his body as he can, but the chill creeps through the soles of his shoes and the denim stretched over his thighs regardless. His phone remains in heavy silence in the pocket of his coat, now soaked. Patrick feels it weigh down the front of his coat in conjunction with the mix of rain and snow and resolves to stand by for another ten minutes. 

Patrick waits another seven soaking minutes (he counts, watching the second hand of his watch tick through the minutes) before he hears a car door slam on the street, and Patrick looks up from the toes of his shoes to watch Pete sprint up the brick sidewalk from his car to the door with his keys clutched in his fist and panting. Pete gives him a brutal once-over at the bottom of the steps, and Patrick pries his frozen thighs from the bricks and stands, knees creaking. “I’m freezing,” Patrick mumbles before Pete can speak. His hair is only dry at the roots, windbreaker soaked through, and he touches his mouth as though he’s unsure if it still works. “It’s okay, but I’m freezing.” 

Pete’s brain seems to catch up with the rest of his body. “I’m so sorry,” he tries, and then as if it’s any excuse, “My phone crapped out.” 

“Mine’s soaking wet.” 

Fumbling with the lock, Pete says again, “I’m sorry. You know I leave my door locked because clients are crazy— or, anti-clients, really. I still don’t know how the fuck they get my address, maybe I should move— ” 

Patrick feels the world slip sideways, whether from the cold exposure or Pete’s warm presence. It’s more noticeable than the way Pete’s freezing hands slip the tiny brass key perfectly into the lock or the slide-and-click of the tape deck into his childhood Walkman, and less violent than watching his grandmother yank his brother’s dislocated shoulder back into the socket by the elbow. Pete is still talking, though Patrick has stopped listening sentences ago. The stairs beneath his shoes tilts and it’s dizzying; Patrick feels faint, fainter when he catches a glimpse of Pete’s face, and he squeezes his eyes closed and is forced upon the thought of being pulled through Pete’s apartment door with Pete’s fingers around the back of his bicep. He thinks Pete pulls him into his chest in the entryway, lifts Patrick’s chin with delicate fingers and presses his mouth to the curve of Patrick’s lower lip, and Patrick forgets to be anxious about last weekend’s fight, the upcoming conversation, his risk of hypothermia. His chances are small; the warmth of Pete’s apartment bleeds straight through his skin and seeps under the front door to the street, and he melts when Pete murmurs against his mouth, “I’ve missed you so much, this week has been Hell. It’s Hell fighting with you.” 

Of course, this doesn’t happen, but it might as well with the way that Patrick’s stomach drops to his shaking knees and the expression Pete wears, the one that looks like whatever he’s going to say next isn’t going back in. Patrick fixates instead on Pete’s fingers and the button on his collar, a combination that makes Patrick want to ask to do it himself. “With the—?” Pete prods, stunned back into reality. “Do you want a change of clothes?” 

Patrick chokes, “No. You can go change, though.” 

Pete frowns and throws Patrick a concerned look. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick reports, unconvincingly. “Are you?” 

“I’m just tired. I, um, haven’t really been sleeping.” Pete pops the button on his collar finally and gives Patrick a long, blank look. “Do you want to call in a pizza or something?” 

Patrick nods, Pete disappears down the hallway, and while punching numbers into his phone still soaking wet, Patrick peers around Pete’s kitchen, and notes what he hadn’t had time to the last time he was here— a number of dishes in the sink, an overflowing recycling bin tucked under the sink, and a collection of photographs stuck to Pete’s refrigerator with ripped sheet magnet. There’s one of Pete and his sister that must be from years ago, a group photo from Gabe’s wedding in which Pete looks exhausted, and a picture of the both of them on the back porch of Gabe’s beach house, looking tipsy and otherwise elated with each other. It makes him feel uneasy, and Patrick chews on the end of his thumb and decides to think nothing of it. He lingers awkwardly in the entryway until Pete emerges from his bedroom and dinner arrives.

♥

Pete drops a paper plate and a wine coaster unceremoniously onto the side table and presses an aluminum can into Patrick’s hand. He bounces against the couch and throws his knees over the center cushion. His toes brush Patrick’s jeans, still damp, and Patrick pulls his legs under his body. Pete has the dignity not to look offended. “I will tell you why I ruined it with Mikey,” he says, reaching for his drink, “If you tell me what happened with William.” 

“Pete,” Patrick snaps, tired. 

Pete gives him a challenging look over the top of his glass, the singular raised eyebrow and the callous _try me_ eyes, and it is then that Patrick remembers what Pete does for a living, that the ruse of a childish exterior is deliberate, and that Pete is the kind of insufferable cunning genius that can turn his stubborn wit inside-out and shake. If Pete wasn’t trained in the art of the information pry, their arguments would be explosive at best. Patrick returns the look, and Pete takes another sip from his glass and offers casually, “You don’t have to. It’s just that—” 

For someone so Machiavellian, Pete is surprisingly predictable. “That I didn’t stay for him either?” 

Pete stiffens and fakes a nonchalant shrug. “You said it.” 

“You want me to tell you you’re better than him.” 

Pete makes a grab for his pizza from the table and announces, “This is a trade. Spill.” 

Patrick leaves his dinner untouched, his beer can sweating in the crook of his knee, and pulls his lower lip into his mouth. “Fine,” he says eventually. “We broke up before Gabe’s wedding, after I had visited Hayley here. I think I just got bored. I was bored when we started hanging out and I was getting bored when we ended it. He’s like a real adult. He has an HSA and a stable income, could buy an apartment but chooses to rent, and he’s a fucking good cook, but— all his friends sucked. The ones that weren’t also mine, I mean, and he is the most unaffected person I’ve ever met— annoyingly tolerant, like would put up with assholes just because it’s easier than calling them out.” 

Pete is quiet for a moment. He then suggests, “So, like, perfect for you?” 

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees. “I should have married him.” 

Pete laughs. “Do you think you were in love with him?” 

“No. Being in love is apocalyptic. It feels like the world is ending.” Pete hums like he doesn’t quite agree, and Patrick makes an abrupt gesture with both his hands and rolls his eyes. “The only time we ever got in a real argument was after I got back from that weekend with Hayley in Boston. It took one fight— oh, my fault, by the way— and we broke up, and when I told him I was moving back, it was like he’d known I was going to all along.” 

Pete thinks of Mikey’s stilted defiance and refusal to entertain any of Pete’s attempts to garner his approval. “Isn’t it nice to have someone who just, I don’t know, tells you to do whatever you want?” he asks, then recalls that Patrick’s hamartia is an inability to decide what he wants, ever, and concedes that the relationship he wants hasn’t always been the same relationship he’s needed. Too much freedom, Patrick must find, is suffocating. 

Patrick counters, “I did do whatever I wanted, but God, it’s so much more fun to fight about it. Like, I want someone to take mushrooms after a comedy show with me, not—” 

Pete interrupts him. “You took mushrooms at a comedy show?” 

“No, after a comedy show, with some friends— or, I did. William didn’t, and then I didn’t remember any of it the next morning except that I felt like I did something I wasn’t supposed to, like I was going to be in trouble for something. Of course, I wasn’t, but I want someone to take mushrooms at a comedy show _with_ me.” Patrick hurriedly reaches for the drink in his lap and narrowly avoids spilling it down the front of his shirt. 

It’s different than gossiping with Hayley, an exchange of their latest frustrations and secret criticisms of the people that rotate around and infiltrate their friend group. It’s biased still, he knows this, but diverges from his usual abstruse excited ranting, talking about someone he stills knows and respects. Pete watches him intently and Patrick finds a new reward in being vulnerable, that he would spill every thought in his consciousness if Pete continues to stare at him like he does now. 

Patrick swallows thickly. “He knew about you— I mean, not everything, but the important stuff,” and which parts had been important and which could be dismissed is debatable, but Patrick trusts that Pete knows what he intends to say. Patrick waits for Pete to justly mention the hypocrisy in this, but it doesn’t come. He continues, “And he just wasn’t worried about it. It wasn’t a concern.” 

Again Pete thinks of Mikey’s passive-aggressive jealousy, the conversation they’d had before Gabe’s wedding, and how subtly smug Mikey had been in the aftermath. To say that Patrick had been somewhat of a concern to Mikey would be a gross understatement, though Mikey’s trepidation surrounding the situation had been more justified; he had been a personal witness to the initial fallout and Pete’s consequent two weeks of madness, alongside Pete’s mother, his sister, and Gabe, and never warmed up to the idea of Patrick being nothing more than a friend— though if he commits to honesty, Pete isn’t sure he had either, despite all his insisting. 

Pete reaches for the side table to finish his dinner, and Patrick shifts on the couch, sets his can of beer on the floor under his feet, and finally reaches for his pizza, now cold. He throws his legs over Pete’s in the center of the couch and prompts around a mouthful of cheese and bread, “You said this was a trade. Tell me what happened with Mikey.” 

Pete grins and ignores the request, half laughing. “Yeah, but why’d you really break up?” 

“Fuck, I don’t know,” Patrick exclaims, and laughs for the first time that night. “I don’t regret it. We’re still friends. It was nice to be someone else for a while but I didn’t feel like myself again until you touched me in Jaho.” Pete makes a face like he’s grasping for where and when, and Patrick shoves at his feet and insists, still laughing, “It’s just different with you. I can’t explain it.” 

“This is a lot,” Pete informs him, “Coming from someone who doesn’t even believe in yoga.” 

Patrick continues, “And I’m sorry about last weekend— and for a lot of things, but I get why you did what you did with Ryan and I’m done being hung up over it. ” 

Pete grins. He crumples his grease-soaked paper plate in his hands and throws it back-handed into Patrick’s lap. “I broke up with Mikey because he wasn’t you.” Pete winks as he rises from the couch, and behind his back, Patrick rolls his eyes, feels his chest grow warm, and smiles to himself, still chewing.

“I’m kicking you out when you’re done eating,” Pete calls from the kitchen, “Because I won’t sleep if I don’t and I wasn’t lying when I said haven’t slept in days.” Patrick cranes his neck to watch Pete wash his glass in the sink, and when he’s finished, Pete leans against the kitchen island with his arms and ankles crossed and stares back at him fondly. 

“What?” Patrick demands. 

“Nothing,” Pete replies, and thinks, _I just like looking at you._ “Can I please pay for your ride home? It’s not for you, it’s for me.” 

♥

Going home alone hurts every time, but this is a new and different kind of hurt, more like missing Pete instead of feeling like he’s missed an opportunity. It feels delicate, and Patrick hesitates when Pete reaches for him at the bottom of his front steps. Patrick drops his forehead to Pete’s shoulder and feels Pete’s shaky inhale against his temple. Pete’s voice is syrupy when he says, “You know you can tell me anything, even if I’m pissed at you, right?” Patrick hums, and Pete rests his chin on the top of Patrick’s head, holds him tightly like he worries Patrick will shove him away, like he can wring the resistance and all of the anxieties out of Patrick’s tired body. He continues, “And I just don’t want to rush into anything if you don’t want to, so we can’t ruin it again. Do you get that?” 

Patrick hums a second time and lifts his face to look into Pete’s eyes, dark against the streetlights and the slush from earlier in the evening. He suggests, “You should let me stay. It’s late?” Patrick lets his hands fall to Pete’s hips, and Pete craves this desperately, to left Patrick off his feet with forearms impossibly tight across the small of his back and transport them both to the asylum that is Pete’s bedroom, another degree of separation from the outside world and its external complications. The thin skin under Patrick’s lower eyelids is still stained purple, and Pete’s heart gives one awkward lurch. Pete drags his thumbs over Patrick’s cheekbones and swears to himself he won’t kiss him.

“Absolutely not,” Pete replies. “Patrick, I can’t mess this up.” He reaches for the car door with one hand and Patrick’s hand with the other, and Patrick stares back at him with saturated eyes before he sinks into the backseat of the car. He’s not quite fast enough for Pete to miss the careless swipe of the back of his hand over his eyes and then his face, erasing the sting Pete’s thumbs had left, but it’s a near thing. 

_I said, "Don't be a jerk, don't call me a taxi,”_

_Sitting in your sweatshirt, crying in the backseat,_

_I just wanna dance with you._ — Happiness is a butterfly 

“I miss us,” Patrick stresses, moistening eyes threatening to spill as he peers at Pete out of the door of the car. “I miss you. I don’t know why everything’s different.” 

Pete says, “I know.” He leans forward to kiss him ( _So much for that promise,_ Pete thinks), and they meet in the middle. With Patrick’s hands on his face, Pete lingers a moment longer than he should, and scared of what will happen if he lets Patrick touch him any longer, grabs Patrick’s wrists. Pete kisses his forehead, his eyebrow, the side of his nose, and pushes Patrick’s hair back from his forehead. He reassures himself as he reassures Patrick, “It’ll be fine. Text me when you get home.” 

It’s difficult to say no to that, so Patrick brushes another kiss over Pete’s mouth and reaches for the door. “Sorry to make to wait,” he tiredly tells the driver as the door closes behind him, and Patrick slides to the opposite side of the car. “It’s Chelsea. You can drop me at Fourth and Broadway.” 

Pete strips out of his clothes in the living room and climbs into bed soon after retreating back inside, too drained to do anything else. Patrick texts him as soon as he steps foot in the door at home, and Pete falls asleep with a pillow held close to his chest and his phone still clasped in his fist. 

_December, Year VI_

After dinner the following Friday (strangely amicable, soft, and drama-free in comparison to recent events), after the cheque has been paid and Patrick is left picking at his food, too much to finish and not enough to save, and after Pete downs what is left of the wine in his glass, Patrick probes, “If this is our worst then we can only go up, right?” 

Pete leans over the table like he might get up and walk out. “What does that mean?” he asks, sounding drained. “I thought we were having a good time.” 

“Tonight or in general?” 

Patrick watches Pete stifle an eye roll. “I think we decided we weren’t rushing into anything.” 

“Why?” Patrick inquires in reply. “It never works with us.” 

Pete frowns and asks softly, “Did you, like, not get the conversation we had last week?” 

Patrick folds his hands in his lap and thinks that from any onlooker, it must look like a lecture. He studies his fingernails, all too cognizant of Pete’s nervous stare burning holes into the top of his head, and turns a vivid shade of pink beneath his hair. The dim light of the dining room somewhat conceals the blush. Pete exhales audibly through his nose. Something gives. 

“Look, Patrick,” Pete says quietly. “I know you’re not really one for brutal honesty, but— whether either of us like it, I, like, want to take you out for dinner and pay for your car home and I want to get wine-drunk with you at home and I want to know every noise you can make in bed. I want this, and I’m sorry that we couldn’t make it work the first time and I’m sorry about Ryan, but also? I think I have to be done chasing this, so we can give it the old college try, or we can spend a small amount more time talking about it, or we—” Pete shrugs with his arms outstretched. “Or we can just be done. You pick; I’m waiting on you.”

Patrick meets Pete’s eyes over the table and feels his stomach twist. Pete watches him expectantly, his elbows resting on the table and ready to flee, and Patrick counters slowly, “I don’t know how to say that I never know what I want and I never will and you’re probably just going to have to live with it, and not sound like a dick.”

“That’s because you can’t.” Pete peels his napkin off of his lap and folds it on the table. He stands and touches his pocket for his phone and wallet, then pushes his chair under the table. “You don’t have to know what you want forever. You just have to know what you want right now.” 

All considering, Pete thinks he should be happier for himself as he trudges back to his car alone. He’s unsure why the confession had made him so uncomfortable, more angry than anything else, after wanting nothing but to spell out those same words virtually since they’d first met. To think it requires a certain degree of separation and to say it makes their attachment all too real, a dependency that dispenses a bitter taste on the back of Pete’s tongue. It’s words that should be whispered only between the hours of midnight and three in the morning, concealed within a fortress of sherpa blankets and plush pillows, and worse, Patrick had looked burdened instead of relieved. Patrick’s twisted smile and eyes darting about the restaurant had done nothing to placate Pete’s anxiety about an impromptu confession. Patrick seems to personify an exhausted conglomeration of built-up emotions lately, and seems anything but contented. Pete blinks his eyes furiously and vows not to create a public display of emotional vulnerability on the street. 

Patrick leaves the restaurant restless. While striding down Washington Street towards Downtown Crossing, enough thoughts occupy the space in his skull that none can be thought of independently, and Patrick’s mind is left completely blank. He fumbles through thoughts like one shuffles through index cards while studying, making note of one thought, ruminating on it briefly, and moving it to the back of the pile. How about the part where Pete had confessed to a laundry list of Patrick’s vanilla fantasies, and the best response he could come up with was an uncertain future? Add that to the endless list of apologies he owes Pete. 

He owes Pete enough apologies for multiple lifetimes. He’d fondly admitted to this on the couch the week previous, but much like going into debt, it’s nearly impossible to catch up, though, Patrick thinks, he should probably start now. 

Patrick swipes his card through the turnstile at the bottom of the stairs at the Crossing and bypasses the tunnel to the Red line home. He instead finds himself waiting for the Orange line to the South End and when the train arrives, Patrick steps into the mob on the train and forgets to be annoyed by the usual headaches of public transportation. As a substitute, Patrick recites his counter-confession to himself on the ride from downtown, to as close to Pelham Terrace as the subway will bring him. 

_Life is a horrifying game of chess and I don’t even know how to play and everyone is smarter than I am, but can I please get a rematch?_ Or, _I said I never know what I want, but I lied, because I really just want to fall asleep with you every night,_ or _, I can’t imagine how it feels to be left behind but no one ever talks about how hard it is to pack up your shit and move halfway across the world when you’re young and in love so you’ll just have to trust me that it didn’t feel any better to leave,_ or— They’re all too cliché, nothing Patrick would ever say aloud and better suited as fuel for the drunken text messages he hopes to send Pete from the bathroom the next time he’s out and wasted with Hayley. He thinks about saving them on his phone before he’s rudely interrupted by the announcement that the train has reached his stop, and Patrick stumbles off the train at Mass Ave with nothing to say. Inspiration doesn’t strike him between the subway station and Pelham Terrace either, so Patrick accepts his ill fate, climbs the few steps to Pete’s front door, and rings the doorbell. 

Pete opens the door still dressed in the same shirt and pants he’d worn to dinner, his coat tucked into his elbow and having obviously returned home only minutes before. He gives Patrick a careful once-over, and one corner of his mouth twists upwards while the other frowns, a visible mixed emotion. Patrick watches him shift from one socked foot to the other and interrupts before Pete can say anything.

“I can’t be friends with you,” Patrick tells him. “I can’t be friends with you and it feels like Hell when you’re not around, so all that’s left is—” Pete gives him an unsure look, and Patrick inhales. He glances around the stairwell inside, absent of Pete’s neighbors, and finishes, “I moved back to Boston for you and that’s the truth. Yeah, Victoria absolutely pulled one over on me and I love it here, but— I wouldn’t have moved back if you wouldn’t be here.”

Pete threatens to smile, and Patrick continues, “Wait, there’s more. I wish we hooked up at Gabe’s wedding. I think it’s funny that Mikey hates me and I think you were terrible together. I’m too stupid to really understand your book. I think it’s hot that your family has money.” Pete leans against the frame of his front door and hides an embarrassed smile under his hand. Patrick takes a breath, chin tipped back to look at the underside of the overhang on Pete’s steps, and almost laughs, or maybe cries. “I think I only started smoking cigarettes again so you’d tell me to quit. I’m a little mad that you didn’t try to sabotage my job offer in Italy but I trust that you thought about it. You’re more fun in bed than William was. You’re my mushroom thought. I think I might believe in fate.”

Pete laughs, otherwise speechless, and asks after a moment, “That’s it? That’s the list of your confessions?”

“Do you need more? There’s more.”

“God, please don’t say anything else,” Pete advises, and kisses him.


	24. In which Pete is sleeping with his Rings on.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“It’s all true, of course / like my preference for difficult men / which I had until recently”_ — Alex Dimitrov, June

_December, Year VI.II_

Patrick owes Victoria the year-end report, the culmination of every hour of work he’s charged since moving back to Boston, before Christmas, and it’s starting to get to him. It’s the final ticket that gets him off the rollercoaster that his life has been since the break-up with Greta, and Patrick is lusting for the moment he gets to hold the shredded ticket stub in the palm of his hand and tell Pete, _yes, for as long as you want me_ , as if he hasn’t made up his mind. He’s staying, regardless of whether or not Victoria willfully invests in his pretentious underground music publication. He’ll network with casual acquaintances from college or leech off of Hayley’s latest gig, write for _Teen Ink_ or _Good Housekeeping,_ or spend his weekends bartending— the lesson being that the past year, encumbrances noted, has offered a taste of normalcy that Patrick would like to lean into. He’s reluctant to even mull over the prospect of his second chance crumbling apart like a stale birthday cake, celebrating his one year anniversary of returning to Boston, of coming home. 

He has a to-do list for the New Year and the most important are listed as follows: substantiate his job, make Pete Wentz fall in love with him at the same time he falls for Pete, and ask Hayley if she wants a part in the aforementioned job, in that order. All three come with their own uncertainties; Victoria seems adamant about withholding her decision until she reviews the year’s productivity and Patrick is avoiding asking her if he can acquire a business partner, afraid it will influence her decision for the worst. He’s unsure if asking Hayley if she wants a management role is insulting after leaving their last project struggling and she’d mentioned going back to school. The second objective is currently the least of his concerns. Attracting Pete’s attention is one of his natural talents, though he still panics each time he picks up Pete’s incoming call that it will be the last. 

He’s deflected the responsibility of informing Pete of Victoria’s still-relevant one-year stipulation because it’s a mood-killer and has the potential to be a major disappointment, especially if Victoria’s decision is a looming no. Patrick doesn’t think he can tell Pete no anymore, especially while he perches on Patrick’s counter in grey sweatpants over a cup of decaf coffee, like a human gargoyle, and watches Patrick review Excel sheets. 

Patrick shuffles papers on his dining room table, which has quickly become his at-home office. Pete brings his cup of coffee in his face, close enough to put his nose in it, and glances at Patrick over the rim of the mug. Pete informs the room, “My secretary did all my call-backs on Friday so I have nothing until I walk into the office on Monday.”

“Shut up,” Patrick replies. “Shut the fuck up.”

Pete laughs with his face in his coffee. “So we’re not going out tonight?” Pete says this as if it’s a surprise, like he doesn’t know that Patrick works until midnight most weeknights, sleeps until ten every day he can, and arrives at the office at noon with a coffee and an otherwise empty stomach. “I’m just checking.”

Patrick ignores the inquisition. He would pull an all-nighter if Pete would allow it. “Do you think it’s patronizing to ask Hayley about the job?” Patrick asks him. Pete eyes him from the counter, and Patrick scrubs at his temples. “Be honest. This could be the thing that ruins me.” 

“You mean asking her if she wants to manage your company when Victoria hands it over to you completely?”

“If,” Patrick corrects him, “And it’s not the whole company, it’s just too much to do by myself.” 

“Yeah, but,” Pete replies as if it’s obvious. A small smile dances across the lower half of his face. It’s fleeting, and Pete wipes away sugar stuck to the corner of his mouth. “She’s going to give it to you.”

“She —Hayley— said she wanted to get another degree. Does it look like I have a savior complex?” 

Pete glances between Patrick and the sea of papers on the table and can’t help but laugh. “I don’t think anyone is going to be misguided about your intentions,” he says carefully, still suppressing a smile, and grins when Patrick drops his forehead to the table with a clunk that rattles the floorboards. “Does this mean you’re going back to school, too?” 

“Fuck, no, like I could afford it anyway.”

Patrick reaches for his papers, and sensing that he’s about to be ignored again, Pete clears his throat. “Are we going to watch a movie or something or am I just going to sit here and watch you work all night?”

Patrick makes a protesting noise, clearly not invested in abandoning his work for the night. He catches Pete’s pleading glance from the other side of the kitchen and admits, “I still need to shower.”

“I can wait,” Pete tells him in return, and within half an hour, Patrick melts against his chest beneath a t-shirt, his hair still damp from the shower, and balances the fresh cup of coffee Pete has prepared for him on his thigh. He reaches for the throw blanket on the back of the couch and swallows around his tongue when Pete’s ankles brush his under the blanket as he pulls it around his waist. 

“Tell me why you want anything to do with me after all of this,” Patrick requests. He pulls Pete’s hair from his face, clasped between his knuckles, and kisses the line of Pete’s jaw, soft cheeks, and cheekbones while Pete laughs underneath him. 

Pete talks like he’s having two different conversations at once, and instead of giving an answer, Pete hums. “Tell me again why I broke up with Mikey.” 

Patrick skips to the part of the conversation he’s participating in. “Because he wasn’t me,” is the easy reply, and pressed on eliciting a response, Patrick drops his face to Pete’s shoulder and runs his finger down the center of Pete’s chest.

It tickles, and Pete grabs his elbow beneath the blanket and warns him gently, “That’s dangerous territory.” 

Patrick looks between Pete’s fingers wrapped around his wrist and the other in his chest and is not put off. “Yeah?” Patrick asks. “Then why haven’t you kissed me yet?”

Pete peels the throw blanket from their legs and carefully takes Patrick’s mug from him. He sets the mug on the coffee table, as far away as he can reach, before he drops the blanket to the living room rug and climbs across Patrick’s thighs. He takes Patrick’s hands in his own and presses them against the arm of the couch, and mumbles against the soft underside of Patrick’s upper arms, “Okay, wait— I’ve got a request.” Patrick lets out a breathy noise, and Pete smirks against his bicep. “I’m flying out to see my mom with my sister for Christmas and she’s staying until New Year’s. She’s going to be here for a few days in January and she wanted to know if you wanted to go to dinner with her.” 

Patrick squirms beneath him. His eyelids flutter closed, and with his voice even, Patrick returns, “Your sister asked me to dinner.” 

“I’ve also been invited.” Patrick gives him a sideways apprehensive look, and Pete sits back on his heels with Patrick’s hands still in his and insists, “She already likes you, she’s said so before.” Patrick stares back at him with dark eyes and even darker circles, and, “I know,” Pete continues, “Just think about it.” 

“Okay,” Patrick replies blankly, too focused on Pete’s thumbs smoothing over his last rib to care about plans for next month. He’s here, on his living room couch, and the only thought that matters is how good Pete’s hands feel against his skin and how much he wants Pete’s mouth on his. “Sure.” 

Pete kisses him. His hands frame Patrick’s face, and Patrick closes his eyes and grounds himself in Pete’s warm hands on his cheeks and Pete’s warm mouth against his own. Pete’s mouth tastes like the same dark coffee and coffee creamer he’s been drinking all evening, and Patrick twists his hands in the hem of Pete’s shirt, guides his thumbs over the spine of Pete’s hip, and lets Pete kiss him with a nauseating sweetness that Patrick only dreams of. Pete’s hands shudder against his face. Patrick only kisses him deeper. 

And right now, Patrick is convinced that this is how he wants to spend the rest of his life, grinding against each other on the couch for what feels like seconds but could be hours,with Pete’s thumb guiding Patrick’s mouth to his, the other peeling the waistband of Patrick’s underwear away from his skin, smoothing over the lines the elastic leaves in his flesh. That alone is enough to make Patrick come but that’s not the endgame; it makes him itchy, his arm hair stand on end and turn hot enough to bleach, and the only cure that Patrick can think of is to pull Pete’s hips closer to his. Patrick’s flattened palm wanders over Pete’s bare chest with ease.

“Patrick,” Pete mutters eventually, a laugh carried by a hot exhale. “Do you want to—?” 

It’s not a question. The swipe of Patrick’s hand over Pete’s ribs starts with the twitch of his thumb, and the mood of the room changes from sleepy-soft to moody, petulant. “No. You can fuck me on the couch if you have to.”

Pete shifts against his hand. Patrick freezes. Pete says against his neck, “You can have whatever you want.”

“Stay here, then.”

Pete’s eyes slide down Patrick’s body and Pete plants a final syrupy kiss to the corner of his mouth before he slides down the front of Patrick’s chest and rests his face on Patrick’s thigh. “We were good at this, you know,” and Pete’s face in the crook of his hip, Patrick sinks his fingers into Pete’s thick hair, the back of the collar of his t-shirt, watches the colors of the television fade together, and lets the room spin, and spin, and spin until he’s sick with it. 

_January, Year VII_

Boston ushers in the New Year with the class of cold signature to the northeast, wet and pervasive. It threatens to snow daily by the third week of December. Heavy clouds graze the tops of the tallest buildings downtown, the sidewalks and streets slick with the same damp air that hangs stagnant in alleyways and the stairs to the T, and the night of New Year’s is no different. The cold had been bearable downtown, mixed in with the crowd of young professionals and older men frequenting sports bars, but now, riding the bus to the stop nearest to his house, Patrick is cold— cold and barely tipsy, since he’d been assigned the responsibility of childminding the alcohol consumption of their friend group (read, Pete and Gabe). 

The Silver line bus isn’t a popular ride just after midnight on New Year’s, and Patrick slides his arm up the back of Pete’s coat to lie his arm across Pete’s shoulder when Pete mutters, blindly drunk, “Success.” Patrick leans in to listen, and they share a glance at the two older women on the other side of the bus. Pete tells him in a hush, “At not getting my dead body flung into the Charles in the annual New Year’s celebration.” 

“We just didn’t stay out long enough to be murdered,” Patrick reassures him. He pats Pete’s shoulder. “There’s always next year.” 

It sounds like a promise that Patrick will stick around for another year at least, despite the open-ended commitment to Victoria. Victoria is to their relationship what Mikey had thought Hayley was, and even drunk, Pete considers the sine wave of their relationship, the catastrophic mudslides that lead to the next awkward exhausting uphill climb, and concludes that the rhythm is predictable if nothing else. He’s willing to see it through one year at a time. Pete lets his eyes fall closed, feeling warm and sleepy in the way only alcohol and Patrick combined can make him feel, and presses a gentle kiss below Patrick’s ear. Pete mumbles, “Promise?” 

Patrick replies easily, “Sure, I promise.” His hand finds the inside of Pete’s knee and he pulls Pete’s thigh to his until the seam on the outside of Pete’s dark jeans aligns perfectly with his own. Pete stares at him with one eye open, a silent challenge, and  Patrick presses his mouth to Pete’s ear and takes a shaky breath before he informs him in a whisper, “It’s been a while since anyone’s kissed me on a bus.” 

Pete sizes up the nearly empty bus situation. The two women at the front are engaged in rapid conversation with one another and the young man by the door is enamored with his phone, so Pete lands another whisper-like kiss where Patrick’s jawline meets his neck and smiles against his mouth when Patrick pulls Pete’s face to his own. 

The rest of the ride from downtown to Chelsea is spent like that, occupying one and a half seats on a vacant city bus, pressed close to each other and oblivious to any looks they may or may not be receiving. It’s New Year’s and the world is drunk enough not to be impressed by their affectation, a public pretense that they are more comfortable with the palpable affection than they might admit alone, though Pete has thought many times before that anything one pretends long enough eventually becomes true. Patrick’s hands in his lap and Patrick’s lower lip between his teeth, Pete has learned to take what he can get without feeling guilty, so Pete holds him there until the bus hisses to a stop and the open doors pummel them with a wave of cold air. Patrick’s teeth bump his nose as the bus lurches to a stop, and, “Fuck,” Patrick exclaims, though it comes out as a whisper. “A warning would be nice.”

Pete grins and kisses him once more before he pries Patrick’s hands from the inside of his thighs and jumps, tottering slightly, towards the door. “There was a warning,” he tells Patrick from the sidewalk as Patrick follows him off the bus. Patrick hops from the step into the bus to the sidewalk curb, and Pete lets his arm hang over the small of Patrick’s back and absorbs Patrick’s subtle gesture in the direction of his house.

♥

Pete pulls himself to vertical with his hands twisted in Patrick’s comforter in the early hours of the morning, feeling sweaty and feverish, and not in the way that he likes. He blindly shoves at the bedsheets until they gather  around his knees and Pete rubs at his eyes with his knuckles before he cautiously touches his feet to the floor. His thumbs pressed to his temples dull the headache and the cooler air is refreshing, and Pete sighs and steals a glance of the lump of bedsheets and rumpled comforter that culminates in Patrick’s sleeping form. 

He sits on the edge of Patrick’s mattress for must be seconds but feels like hours. His head is swimming and with the sudden sense that if he’s going to vomit it might as well not be on Patrick’s bedroom floor, Pete stumbles across the hall, groping for the light switch, and drops to the bathroom floor. The tile is cold and unforgiving, just uncomfortable enough to nudge Pete from the throes of self-pity. 

“Hey,” Patrick whispers from the door of the bathroom. He clutches a sweatshirt against his chest, blinks, and squints against the yellow light, and suddenly embarrassed, Pete drops his head into his folded arms stacked on his knees. “Are you okay?” 

“Uh,” Pete reports. 

On the bathroom floor, Pete looks awkward and sick and cold, and Patrick feels his chest tighten uncomfortably. He tosses the sweatshirt over Pete’s bare knees and says, “I brought you this.” Pete pulls it over his head with shaking hands. It’s his sweatshirt and smells of his own laundry detergent and Patrick’s bedroom, and Pete buries his face in collar and hears Patrick ask, “What helps?”

“I don’t know. Tums? Excedrin?” 

“I have Tums. I don’t have— Excedrin, though. Can you get it at CVS?” Pete gives him a despondent look. “I’ll go, it’s not that late,” Patrick promises. This is false; the red LEDs of the clock beside his bed report that it’s almost three, but Patrick has frequented the closest 24-hour CVS at this hour many times before. “I can be back in twenty minutes.” 

Pete wants to tell him not to go but nothing comes out, and Patrick produces a container of Tums from behind his bathroom mirror and leaves Pete on the floor with a glass of water. Pete hears him pull on his coat, the jingle of house keys, and the familiar click and creak of Patrick closing the front door in reverse. 

It’s truly freezing on the street, a bitter cold and penetrating wind. Patrick kicks clumps of ice and frozen dirt from his front walkway to the street and strides to the nearest pharmacy with more speed than he’s ever had. 

The white light reflecting off the shelves and the cashier’s counter makes Patrick feel nauseous himself and Patrick sweeps the requested headache relief (brand-name, which he’d never buy for himself) off the shelf and hands it over the register to the bored cashier with a five-dollar bill. 

“You’re short two,” the cashier informs him. 

“Oh,” Patrick says blankly. He reaches for his card in the pocket of his coat and asks, “Can I have a pack of cigarettes, too?” 

At home, Patrick sprints up the stairs in his entryway, now wide-awake from the cold, and empties the pockets of his coat on the kitchen counter before he goes to find Pete upstairs. 

“Want to talk about it?” Patrick asks, sitting on his bathroom floor and ripping into the package of Excedrin. He drops it into Pete’s open hands and watches Pete sip his water. 

Pete wipes his face on the cuff of his sweatshirt sleeve. He feels smarmy, eyes and nose dripping, and in desperate need of a toothbrush. “What, the fact that I just puked in your bathroom?” 

Patrick hums, wraps his forearms around Pete’s shoulders, and pulls him into his chest. “Five years,” Patrick mumbles into his hair. “Don’t you think I’m over this?” 

♥

Victoria doesn’t call him on the first of the New Year. She doesn’t call him on January second either, or January third, for that matter. Victoria calls Patrick as he is standing in line for coffee before going into the office, and Patrick takes one look at his vibrating phone and rolls his eyes. “Shit,” Patrick says to himself, and gets out of line to step outside. 

Patrick stands under the awning outside and avoids making eye contact with strangers while Victoria talks him through key performance indicators, extending late-stage funding, and the auditor’s report he had finessed out of William with some carefully placed calls for favors. By the end of the call, Patrick’s fingers and toes are numb, both from the cold and the relief that Victoria is more than pleased. 

“I have to tell you,” she says, “I wasn’t sure where you were going with all of this but it’s turned out better than I’d expected.” She pauses; Patrick grins. “You’re hard to say no to, did you know that?”

Patrick could say the same to her, but instead he thanks her profusely, still grinning, and asks, “What do you think of adding a second person on management?” 

It’s a natural progression of the project, within the realm of reasonable requests. Victoria hesitates. “It would have to be the perfect situation,” she tells him, and it is, but she doesn’t have to know that now. Patrick thanks her again and gets back in line feeling five years younger. 

“So,” he says when he opens the door on Pete later that evening. 

Pete stands on the stairs holding a paper bag of groceries, looking nervous. “So what?” 

“So I, like, co-own a magazine now— or I will, after I sign some papers.” 

Pete hands Patrick the bag of groceries. “What does that mean?” 

Pete stares at him expectedly, and Patrick laughs, correctly anticipating the myriad expressions that flicker over Pete’s face when Patrick tells him, “That I want this— us. I mean, not that I didn’t before, but I didn’t want to make any promises before— unless you’ve changed your mind?” 

Pete tackles Patrick in an embrace from behind that knocks the wind out of both of them. Pete grabs Patrick’s face in his hands, kisses him once, and mumbles, almost mocking, “Changed my mind? I’m crazy about you.”

♥

The weather stays bleak through the end of the month, cold enough that Patrick renounces his ride home via public transit most nights. He is content to dwell in Pete’s space instead of in the freezing tunnels and platforms of the subway system, and Pete has committed to not mentioning it when he comes home from work on Friday nights or the grocery store on the weekend to find Patrick’s beaten backpack spilling papers over his kitchen island and the coffee table. Pete is concerned that Patrick will find this development an insulting implication and Pete will stop finding thin hi-gloss papers and Excel print-outs defaced with scribbles, remnants of Patrick’s existence, in his kitchen drawers, littering his bookshelves, and occasionally in his own work papers. 

Patrick arrives early Friday evening, sets up his laptop and papers on Pete’s kitchen island, and becomes one with his keyboard until mid-afternoon the next day with the vague knowledge that at some point Pete will snap him from his work-induced stupor to meet his sister. Patrick is not particularly excited about the introduction, the going outside, or the work interruption; the weather outside is bone-chilling, but Pete’s apartment is warm, and besides, it also contains Pete. There’s no need to leave. 

“Let’s go out,” Pete announces to no one in particular. Patrick’s eyes don’t move from his laptop, fingers still poised over the trackpad. Pete drapes himself over the back of the couch, shirtless, and repeats to Patrick this time, “We’re meeting Anna at seven, let’s go out before then. I’m bored, it’s Saturday, and you’ve been inside all day.” 

Patrick’s eyes flicker to Pete’s chest, and Pete grins. Patrick rolls his eyes and returns to his laptop. “Where are we meeting her?” 

“Ro’s.” 

Patrick sighs and scrubs at his eyes. “We’re going all the way to Back Bay? It’s too fucking cold.” 

“Fine then,” Pete pouts. He doesn’t say _all the way to Back Bay_ mockingly, but Patrick knows he means it. “Should I tell her we’re going to the Gallows instead?” He gives Patrick the eyes, still lounging half-naked over the couch, and Patrick physically caves.

“We can go to Ro’s,” Patrick concedes, if only because Pete had offered an unsatisfactory alternative, “But I have to go home first. I don’t have any clothes and I need to shower.” 

Pete laughs loudly. “You won’t go to Back Bay, but you’ll go home— all the way to Chelsea?” 

♥

Despite Patrick’s initial protest, the night finds them at Ro’s. Patrick treks home to shower and change into an outfit more impressive than the jeans and superannuated crewneck he’s been donning for the better part of forty-eight hours, and he steps off the train at Copley to meet Pete outside the public library and walk the three blocks to the bar. 

Patrick stands against the glass front of the library’s main entrance with his hands fisted in his coat pockets. He wrinkles his nose to express his distaste for the wind and removes his hands from his pockets only long enough to wrench his hat further down over the tips of his ears. Pete gestures down the street, and Patrick tells him, wishing it was any warmer or he would wrap his hand around Pete’s elbow, “You look absolutely ecstatic.” 

Patrick offers a petty sideways smile, and Pete carefully sidesteps the invitation for eye contact. “Yeah, well,” Pete starts. He sniffles. “I might have waited to warn you that she’s a little intense.” 

“Because I don’t know anything about intense.” Patrick makes a prompting gesture and replaces his hands in his coat. Beside him, Pete shrugs, and Patrick strives to be reassuring. “You said it’ll be fine; it’ll be fine. I can be nice for an hour.”

Pete holds the door to the bar open for him and makes a face. “She can see through your bones.” 

“It might even be fun,” Patrick supplies, though later he will admit that the preliminary information he’d received about Anna during the briefing sounded terrifying and he’s been steeling himself for an hour of interrogation since he’d left Pete’s apartment hours ago. Pete offers an agreeable-but-unconvincing nod. 

Anna is nowhere to be found on the first floor of the restaurant, so they select a booth in the corner as far from the crowded bar as possible to alleviate the noise. Patrick slides into the booth to sit against the window and throws his legs over Pete’s thighs when Pete sits beside him. He twists his hands into Pete’s nearest pocket to interlace their fingers, and Anna arrives shortly after, composed and completely unaffected at the notion of being fifteen minutes late. 

Anna is slim but occupies the space of a much larger person, with her knee-length coat and her heavy knit scarf wrapped up to her chin. Her dark hair falls nearly to her waist when she pulls it from inside her coat with a practiced flick of her wrist, and Patrick is again taken aback by how similar Pete and his sister look. They make the same excited-but-scrutinizing face when they see each other, and Anna gives Patrick a quick judging glance and then looks back to Pete, relaying a thought only understood by the two of them. Pete stares at her, blank-faced, but the exchange of information is obvious, especially when Anna pulls her scarf from her chin and stifles a laugh with a raised eyebrow. Pete shifts beneath Patrick’s legs. 

“Sorry I’m late,” she announces, unremorseful, as she stands beside the booth and rips off her hat and scarf. She piles them into her side of the booth and fixes her hair in her reflection in the window. Anna doesn’t introduce herself but continues, “I decided I would take the train from my hotel, and it is unlivably fucking cold. Why do you live here?” 

Patrick grins. Pete’s stomach twists. He is forthwith aware that introducing Patrick to his mother would have been much less anxiety-inducing than bearing witness to the scrupulous look Anna and Patrick are exchanging over the table. His mother is careful, demonstrative, and tolerant. Anna is, despite being of the same flesh, a spitfire, poised and cool and abrasive at times, and now that he thinks of it, more similar to Patrick than himself in terms of personality. The odds of distaste or a blooming mutual respect are equal. Pete takes a shaky inhale and crosses his legs with Patrick’s knees still in his lap. “Anna,” he says cautiously, “This is Patrick, and Patrick, this is Anna.” 

Anna drops into the booth and slides to the window to sit across from Patrick. “Patrick,” she repeats. “I’ve heard so much about you. I told Pete I didn’t think we really needed to meet at this point, but he insisted.” 

“You orchestrated this,” Pete snaps at her, and is ignored by his company. 

Patrick reaches for her hand across the table and exposes, “I was briefed.” Anna finds this immensely funny; Pete looks like he would like to be absorbed by the hardwood floors. 

Anna gives Pete another look and then glances between them, finally settling on their stacked knees. She tells Pete, “You look comfortable.” 

Pete replies stiffly, “I am comfortable.” 

She looks only momentarily impressed by his effrontery. The piqued look vacates her face as soon as it had arrived, and Anna settles into the vinyl seating and flags down a menu from the next waitstaff that passes the table. She spends her evening entertaining the table as Pete has seen her do many times before, charming in the way she knows she is the most mesmeric person in the room. She interrogates Patrick about the job and the move as much as Pete will let her, though Patrick doesn’t need the help. He deflects Anna’s leading questions with an insider’s expertise, and when Anna gets bored of it, she spills Pete’s most embarrassing secrets and his worst idiosyncrasies and pretends she isn’t peeved that Patrick isn’t perturbed by any of this. 

“A magazine?” Anna says. _In the twenty-first century?_ she doesn’t. 

“It’s semi-successful,” Patrick tries. 

“Anna,” Pete warns. 

“He’s very concerned about what you think of him,” Anna informs Patrick. She holds her wine spritzer close to her chest, an awkward contrast against the beer Pete and Patrick are sharing on the opposite side of the table. “It’s such a fucking ruse, though. You know he used to be broke enough to wear his boyfriend’s hand-me-down underwear?” 

“No,” Pete interjects in a desperate attempt to salvage what is left of his dignity, but it drips off the table and between the cracks in the floorboards with what he reveals next. “It was Gabe’s, in college, not that— I get that that doesn’t make it better.”

Patrick takes a well-timed swig of the shared beer and maintains his eye contact with Anna. “I know this.” 

Anna continues, “He also has a portrait of his ex-boyfriend tattooed on his leg that deserves its own exhibit in the MOMA.”

“Gabe’s not his ex-boyfriend,” Patrick continues, and this time, Pete doesn’t bother to correct either of them. Anna hums but reveals nothing and throws Pete another glance across the table. 

The situation improves once dinner arrives. Anna loses her interest in Gabe-related topics and instead starts a conversation about the apartment she’s moving into for the spring, and Pete pushes his food around his plate and resolves not to speak unless spoken to for the rest of the meal, content to watch his sister and his love banter about iniquitous landlords and haunted elevators as long as he isn’t the punchline. 

“It was like,” Patrick explains. “The up button never worked and it never stopped at the third floor, so if you wanted to ride to the third floor you had to walk to the second, ride to the fourth, and then walk back to the third. You could catch it back down to the lobby, though.” 

Anna frowns. “How did it get to your floor then?” 

Patrick’s face reveals that he’d never thought of this. 

Pete hugs her goodbye on the sidewalk after dinner and feels his blood pressure steadily declining with her imminent departure. She kisses him on the cheek and confirms their usual agreement that nothing spoken over dinner is to ever be relayed to their mother, and when she steps back, she looks Patrick up and down and makes a considering face. She hums and asks, “Hey, you don’t have a cigarette, do you?” 

Pete rolls his eyes, and Patrick tells her, his face threatening a grin, “Actually, I do. Would you like one?” Before she can reply, Patrick unearths the box from the inside pocket of his coat and extends it to her. She takes one from the box and patiently awaits a lighter. Patrick hands her the lighter, and she lights her cigarette with her dainty fingers held close to her mouth, inhales, and returns the lighter with a smile that warms her whole body. 

Patrick repockets the box and the lighter. Anna asks, “You don’t want one?” 

“I’m trying to quit,” Patrick explains, and Anna laughs at this, as belittling as it is encouraging. 

“Sorry,” she says, again sounding like she regrets nothing. “I’m not helping.” She wraps Patrick in a polite hug, leaves Pete with a violent embrace and a promise to call him later in the week, and throws a final wink in Patrick’s direction as she leaves. She waves over her shoulder, her fingers twitching and her other hand still carefully latched onto her cigarette. 

“So,” Pete starts after a moment. “You’ve met my sister.” 

On the sidewalk but snugged up under the awning, Patrick leans into Pete’s body and bumps him lightly on the chest.He whispers, “That was brutal,” before he erupts into laughter. 

Pete stifles a smile, not having fully recovered from his sister’s efforts to humiliate him, and agrees, “Yeah.” 

“Oh my God.” At Pete’s sympathetic look, Patrick bursts into another laughing fit. “How does she know all that?” 

“I told you,” Pete insists. “She’s just omniscient. You know this is how I feel whenever Hayley is around, right?” and Patrick grins at him, slides his hand down Pete’s forearm, and takes Pete’s hand in his.

“Oh, come on, Hayley is way scarier,” and Pete is forced to agree. 

It’s cold, as Patrick had made clear earlier in the evening, but Pete’s hand is warm in his and Patrick isn’t eager for the night to end, to go home alone after spending half of his weekend at Pete’s to lie in front of his television and pretend he doesn’t miss Pete like he does. 

“It’s not that late,” Patrick says, and twists Pete’s fingers to sneak a look at his watch. His words ring true; it’s not late, but it is dark. The days of the winter months seem shorter every year, and Patrick is determined to fight off the chill of a February evening for as long as possible. “Walk to the Commons and split the car home?” 

The Commons and the surrounding storefronts are still decorated to the hilt for Christmas. The windows of the shops of Tremont Street have been trimmed with lights, ornaments, and mounds of fake snow. The bright colors spill from the window panels to the sidewalks below, and the trees are bare for the winter but their green leaves have been replaced with warm yellow string lights, further illuminating the sidewalks and pedestrians. The city seems to be extending the solstice celebration indefinitely, and the area is still busy with shoppers and people on their way home from late nights at the office or any of the local bars. 

Pete is unusually quiet, still meditating on the differences between the last time he’d seen Anna, a dark bar in Paris, and tonight’s excursion, a dark bar in Boston. 

Beside him, Patrick gives him a small smile and tells him again, “Your sister is really something, you know.” Pete nods like he always does when he’s not sure of what to say, and Patrick’s playful smile slowly spreads into a grin. “It was fun, though. I had fun tonight.”

“It runs in the family.” It’s still delicate, Pete thinks, though he’s expanding his ability to be vulnerable after years of shoving it beneath the pits of his stomach as a habit necessary for survival, to be overt with how he feels after spending too long implying it through text messages and late night phone calls half-asleep and novels of epic length. Patrick’s bright eyes are round and honest, but Pete still trips over the simplest of confessions. “I’m— I’m glad that you had fun tonight.”

“You didn’t have fun.” 

His fingers wrapped around Patrick’s elbow, Pete’s heart flutters unnaturally in his chest. “Uh— I got to watch you have fun. That’s good enough for me.” Pete’s grin catches halfway up his face, and he wonders if the lightheaded feeling he gets each time Patrick blinks is a consequence of the little alcohol he’d ingested earlier or the fact that his chest tightens with every brush of Patrick’s thumb over his knuckles. Patrick laughs and Pete’s stomach lurches. Pete inhales and asks, “Hey, can I take you home with me?” 

Patrick stares at him, mouth agape, and then laughs again. “Yeah,” he whispers. Patrick’s eyes are dark, glazed over, reflecting the gold light glittering above them, and Pete tips his chin up and kisses him, feels Patrick shift against him to press his hands to Pete’s chest, fingers twitching. 

_Grab my waist, don’t waste any part_

_I believe you see me for who I am,_

_So I spill my clothes on the floor of your new car,_

_Is it safe to just be who we are? —_ Love Song

Patrick’s hands find his in the back of the car. Pete’s rings are cold under his fingertips but he’s hot under his winter hat and coat, body heat quickly turning to sweat on his lower back and worsening when Pete shoves a hand under his shirt. Patrick presses his hands into the seat of the car and finds Pete’s mouth, hot and wet against his own, a nd if Pete keeps touching him like that, teasing and infectious and blissful, he is going to have to start going to Church. 

Pete pulls away from him to tell the driver, “It’s, um— Fourth Street and Broadway,” and Patrick laughs. 

“Oh, you’re coming home with _me._ ” 

Pete doesn’t reply but fumbles with the zipper of Patrick’s coat, fingers numb from the cold and dexterity lost to anticipation. He manages to work the zipper halfway down before Patrick is pulling his coat over his head, abandoning it in pursuit of something warmer, and the rest of the ride to Pete’s apartment is a careless orphaning of clothes in the back of the car. 

Pete smooths his hands over all the exposed skin he can find with his fingertips. Pete traces the hem of Patrick’s shirt with his thumbs and Patrick traces Pete’s incisors with his tongue, and Pete swallows the groan Patrick makes when he’s close enough to taste the inside of Pete’s mouth, like their shared beer and Anna’s drink mix. 

Patrick folds his hands into fists in Pete’s shirt in a grotesquely desperate attempt to keep quiet, a feat that increases in difficulty as Pete drools in his ear, “This is all I could think about all night.” Patrick lurches towards him and sucks in a breath between his teeth. 

Patrick stumbles out of the car when the driver pulls up the curb. He watches Pete fling a folded twenty from the bottom of his pocket at the driver and laughs when Pete gets an annoyed look in return. Pete snatches his coat off the floor of the car and a handful of Patrick’s thigh simultaneously, and Patrick pulls him to the front door of his house and up the stairs in the entryway with his hands in Pete’s pockets. Patrick flounders with his key in the door, and when he finally flings the door open, Patrick tumbles into his tiny foyer and cracks, breathless, “I think I left my credit card in the car.” 

Pete laughs and smooths his hands  over Patrick’s ribs between his jacket and his t-shirt. Patrick drops his coat to the floor in the kitchen and follows Pete closely to the living room, where they together undress Patrick in a fit of blissful desperation. Pete grapples with the hem of Patrick’s shirt where it meets the waistband of his jeans until Patrick lets up enough to let him twist the shirt over his head. Patrick throws his shirt and jeans over the back of Patrick’s couch, discarded in favor of Pete’s hands, and Pete peels off his shirt, already sticky with sweat, and holds out his arms for Patrick to tackle him into the couch cushions, and tackle him he does. 

“Fuck, Gorgeous,” Pete breathes, and that’s what does it; Pete feels Patrick grin against his mouth, and then Patrick’s mouth is on his collar, the soft space between his ribs, and the tattoo below his navel, Patrick’s hands on his fly, and there’s not much thinking going on after that. 

♥

Patrick sits between Pete’s knees the following morning with an endless pile of blankets shoved to the end of the bed and Pete’s cock in his hand. Patrick doesn’t remember falling into bed the night before, only that he’d had offered Pete the shower at the exact moment he’d slumped into the pillow. He’s still sticky, his hair tangled and encrusted with sweat in places, and there’s no reason not to become only filthier. 

The radiator behind Patrick’s headboard clicks and shuts off, leaving the bedroom in a dense silence, and Patric muses aloud, “I don’t think your sister likes me much.” Patrick swipes his thumb around the head of Pete’s cock. Pete screws up his face. 

“I need you not to talk about my sister when you’re about to suck me off,” Pete replies, sounding out of breath. He throws his forearm over his eyes. 

Patrick laughs. “Am I?” 

“If something else is going on, let me know.” 

Patrick considers it for a moment. He sits back on his heels and inhales, mouth twisted like he’s thinking hard, and decides now is as good a time as any to ask. He suggests gingerly, voice raw from the night before, “You should get me off now, then fuck me.” 

Pete is still for a moment. He drinks in the image of Patrick’s naked body at the end of the bed, perfect pout and his knees folded neatly under his body, and props himself up on his elbows. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah, I can do that,” Pete concedes, and Patrick climbs over his thighs, stares into Pete’s eyes still crusted with sleep, and lets Pete’s hands slide over the wiry hair on his thighs, between his hips, and over his chest. It’s an undebatable truth that Pete has a hard time tearing his hands away from Patrick’s body once touching has commenced, and Pete revels in the way Patrick lets him touch, muscles twitching under his hands as they tangle together over Patrick’s fitted sheet. Patrick kisses him, eyes falling shut and sickly sweet, and laughs at Pete’s sharp inhale. 

“Patrick,” Pete breathes when Patrick puts his palm in Pete’s chest, drops his head to the pillow, and takes a moment to breathe. “Patrick, Patrick, I don’t even know where to start,” and Patrick makes a strangled moan, a sound Pete will never get tired of.

Patrick brings their hips together, threads their fingers together, and says, “Just— touch me, fuck me.” 

“You do it,” Pete says, like he doesn’t quite trust himself to do it the right way, the way Patrick imagines when he’s home alone at the bottom of two glasses of wine. He squeezes Patrick’s hip, and Patrick nods and reaches for the lubricant in his bedside table, stumbling around several tubes of Chapstick, a tube of hand lotion, and an extra phone charger. It’d be easier if he was willing to take his mouth off of Pete’s, but he finds it under his fingertips eventually and pops the cap with trembling fingers. Pete slides a hand under his bicep and rolls them over slowly with the excuse, “I want to see you.” 

Patrick sinks two fingers inside himself with minimal preparation, lower lip caught between his incisors, and Pete groans, cock hard against Patrick’s hip. He wraps a hand around Patrick’s cock, works him slowly, and Patrick gives a little noise, fingers twisting inside himself. Pete coaxes him through the prep, all soft hands and encouragements, the need to bring Patrick to a withering mess nagging deep in his chest.

“Okay,” Patrick exhales after a moment. His breath catches on nothing, and Pete grabs his free wrist, watching expectantly. They exchange a glance, Patrick’s fingers catch the rings on Pete’s hand, and Patrick asks thickly, “Take these off?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Pete mumbles. He slips the rings off over his knuckles and into Patrick’s palm— one, two, three. Patrick’s fingers close around them, and still breathless, Pete says, “You can just put them on your nightstand or whatever. I don’t care.” 

Rings abandoned on the nightstand, Pete fumbles with the tube of lubricant and lets it drop from his hands to the bedsheets to trace his fingers down Patrick’s side body and the outside of his thigh before he presses one finger  into him beside Patrick’s fingers.  He catches Patrick’s mouth in his own when Patrick’s mouth falls open, and this is what Patrick likes, when Pete pushes his buttons without being asked, when he can pretend they’re telepathic. “Patrick,” Pete breathes, in just the right way, and if Patrick’s ever wanted anyone else in his twenty-five-and-plus years of life, he doesn’t now. 

It’s hard not to cling. Patrick locks his arm around Pete’s shoulders and his ankles over Pete’s waist and arches into Pete desperately, aching cock pressed into Pete’s stomach. Pete pants against his jaw, breath humid against his ear, and Patrick whines. His short fingernails skate over Pete’s shoulder blades and when Pete ducks to kiss his collarbones, Patrick’s hand flies to Pete’s face. 

“No,” Patrick says stiffly. “No, I need you to kiss me on the mouth.” 

“Yeah, anything,” Pete pants into his ear. Pete’s mouth finds his and Patrick’s ankles slide over Pete’s lower back unconsciously. He bites at Patrick’s lower lip gently, incisors scraping over sensitive skin, and Patrick could come, or better yet, die, right now, filled with Pete’s fingers and his own fingers and the dizzying friction of Pete’s hip against his dick. 

The beginnings of Patrick’s orgasm pooling below his navel go unnoticed, so much so that when Pete replaces Patrick’s fingers with his own and nudges in the right direction, Patrick can do nothing but laugh. 

Pete promises, “I’ve got you,” and Patrick reaches between them to wrap a hand around his cock, feeling pre-come slick between them. Patrick grinds up into Pete’s stomach and his own hand, feels his body go tense, and comes on a sharp gasp. He feels Pete’s hips stutter against his and Pete’s fingers clench into a fist under his arm when he groans. Pete watches Patrick squeeze his eyes closed and starts, “I—” 

“Just kiss me,” Patrick tells him again. “I don’t know how else to tell you that I need you to kiss me on the mouth.” 

It takes a moment of soft breaths and sloppy kisses pressed to the back of Patrick’s shoulders but they figure it out; Patrick balances himself on Pete’s knees with his own knees underneath himself and feels Pete’s thumb sink into the dimples above his ass as he reaches again for the tube of lubricant on the bed. He hands it to Pete over his shoulder, Pete’s mouth still on his shoulder, and Pete asks, “Still good?” 

“I’m good,” Patrick tells him. Pete strokes himself off with a palm slick with lubricant, and tugs Patrick into his lap. Pete’s cock falls against his lower back, and Patrick groans and presses his knuckles into his eyes.“Fuck, want this, please don’t be a tease—” and Pete smiles into the back of Patrick’s neck. He kisses Patrick’s shoulder with a hint of teeth andwraps strong hands around Patrick’s hips before he pulls Patrick onto his cock, slow enough to leave Patrick shaking. 

Pete grazes his hands over Patrick’s chest and Patrick pops his hip audibly. He feels sticky and satiated and in desperate need of a hot shower, though he feels he can’t possibly move with Pete’s fingers wrapped gently around his thighs and Pete’s chest pressed to his back. He’s hot and pliable and the best he can do is let Pete mold him into a new shape. 

“Is this okay?” Pete whispers. “If it’s too much, we should stop, I—”

“No,” Patrick gasps, quickly enough to sound desperate. “No, ’s so good. I’m good.” He already looks fucked, dirty blond hair plastered to his forehead and the back of his neck with sweat, color bleeding from his swollen lower lip to the rest of his face. Pete wraps an arm around Patrick’s chest and pulls him impossibly closer, further onto Pete’s cock, and feels Patrick clench around him, hands twisted in the sheets under him. 

Patrick releases the growing sob from his chest as Pete pulls out and slides back into him with his hand on Patrick’s hip. “You’re so fucking gorgeous,” Pete spits out, and like he’s stunned,  “You like this. You really, really like this.”  Patrick flushes. He’s half- hard again, the result of Pete’s cock buried deep inside of him and his hands on his chest, and Pete could get off on that thought alone. Patrick  twists his fingers further in the bedsheets. Pete’s thumb finds a nipple. “Tell me you want it.” 

“Oh fuck, Pete, please—” Patrick stutters. The feeling of Pete plastered over his body is overwhelming and he’s not above whining, though he’s desperate for the feeling when Pete gets tired of the soft and slow, reluctant to waste time, and gives him everything.

“Yeah,” Pete growls. “Want to hear you.”  Pete fists a hand in the shorter hair at the back of Patrick’s skull and pulls it back to meet his shoulder, pulls Patrick’s hand from between his teeth, and works his mouth over the soft lines of Patrick’s jaw and the beginnings of stubble on his throat.

Pete keeps his mouth on Patrick’s neck as he finds a rhythm that works; he pulls Patrick further into his lap every time he rolls his hips up into Patrick’s ass, and Patrick feels like he’s drowning in Pete’s machismal energy and his own headspace, forgetting where his extremities end and the rest of the world begins. His hands are numb, fisted in the sheets hard enough that he’s sure the veins in the back of his hands are visible through the skin of his knuckles. It’s a bit much in only the best way, and short of some embarrassing emotional release, the best Patrick can do is reach up to wrap one arm around Pete’s neck and drags his knees back under him when Pete whispers, “C’mon, love, you’ve got to do something here.” 

Patrick can feel that he’s close, the arrhythmic stuttering of Pete’s hips and how he swallows around his tongue. Pete breathes hot in Patrick’s ear, arms trembling with the effort of holding Patrick vertical and holding back his own orgasm, and Pete spills a litany of filth in his ear, a slew of _fuck, Patrick_ and short breaths. 

“More,” Patrick slurs. He fists a hand in Pete’s hair, pulls gently, and feels Pete’s mouth fall open slightly. “Please, wanna feel you—” and Pete slides his hand down the inside of Patrick’s thigh and comes on a choked noise.  The lingering scent of Patrick’s shampoo and sweat stuck to his hair is intoxicating,  and Pete breathes him in, all sweaty soft skin and effeminate features, marauding in bed. Pete drops his forehead to Patrick’s shoulder and takes a moment to breathe, then  wraps a hand around Patrick’s cock. 

“You’re so good,” is the only string of words Pete can think to tell him, soft and full of want, and Patrick writhes in his grasp, overstimulated, and comes with a desperate noise. Around him, Pete laughs warmly, and after a moment, Patrick stretches his legs only enough for Pete to slide out and deposits himself into the pillows. Pete wipes the sweat from Patrick’s cheekbones with his thumbs and pulls him close, feels Patrick shake and pant into his chest. The transparency between them is better than any sex Patrick has ever had, and Patrick feels weak with it. 

“You’re so good,” Pete says again, murmured into his hair, his hands on either side of Patrick’s face, and Patrick uses the last of his strength to wrap his arms around Pete’s neck and bury his face in Pete’s collarbones, and tries his best to drown himself in Pete. 

Patrick wants, but more than that, he loves. Passion and affection are not his strong suit, confusing at best, but Patrick can breathe in their shared space. Pete’s fingertips are delicate on his cheekbones and his jawline, and he can withhold nothing. 

_When you do it, the way that you move it,_

_Spins me around like a record, baby._ — JFK

“I’m serious,” Patrick tells the ceiling hours later, “That your sister doesn’t like me.” He nudges Pete gently. 

Pete sighs. “I promise she does,” he assures Patrick. “She’s just like that.” It comes out unconvincing, muffled against the pillowcase and the edge of the duvet, and Pete pulls it away from his face and shivers. He rolls away from Patrick’s warm body and reaches for his phone on the nightstand— the phone that’s still in the pocket of his jeans, discarded on the floor beneath the couch the night previous. “She sent me a text last night after we left. I’ll show you if you get up.” 

Patrick is more interested in a morning spent in bed than whatever Anna has to say about him, so Patrick shrugs and mumbles, “You said I was pretty.” He stretches his arms above his head and listens to his spine crack between his shoulder blades, then yawns and cracks his neck, too. 

Pete’s lip twitches. “You’re like a human snap bracelet, very nineties.” 

Patrick tugs Pete back into his chest with his hands closed around Pete’s wrists. Pete’s eyes don’t quite meet his. “Did you mean it?” 

“Yeah,” Pete breathes. He pushes up on his elbows to kiss Patrick softly. Patrick slides his hands to Pete’s biceps, fingers dancing over Pete’s tattoos. Patrick squeezes his arm, mouth twitching into a smile, and Pete touches the disheveled hair at the back of his skull and wrinkles his nose. “Do you have plans for the day?” 

Patrick hums. “Um— not really. I’m doing laundry now, I guess.” 

Patrick wears the smallest of Pete’s rings out of the house on Monday, and over dinner the following evening, Patrick tells him, “You left this at my house the other day.” He pulls the ring off his finger and drops it into Pete’s open palm with no additional comments, and Pete feels like he’s missed out on the joke. 


	25. In which Patrick goes to MOMA and he's still In Love.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Maybe... you'll fall in love with me all over again." — "Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"_ — Ernest Hemingway

_February, Year VII_

On the Sunday morning after Valentine’s Day, Pete sits across from Gabe at Farmer’s Horse and empties six packets of sugar into his iced coffee. It is late enough in the morning that most of the Sunday morning rush has diminished and the tiny, encroaching on cramped, café is mostly empty. Pete stabs at the ice in the top of his coffee with a straw, disseminating the sugar into the depths of the plastic cups, and subconsciously notices Gabe stretch his legs into the space between the table and the wall. Pete throws his ankles over the chair beside him. Gabe is halfway through outlining his Valentine’s Day dinner date with Erin, whatever craft brewery they’d frequented on the North Shore, and Pete nods at the right moments and swears that he’s listening, but his thoughts float elsewhere— he owes his mother a phone call, the back-and-forth he’d dropped with his publisher ten minutes before five on Friday because of a meeting over dinner with a client, the Friday night out (or in) with Patrick he’d canceled for said dinner meeting. The fidgeting is only exacerbated by the sugar and the caffeine. 

Gabe tunes into his lack of enthusiasm. “Did you do anything?” 

“What, for Valentine’s Day?” Pete asks shortly. He pokes the straw through the tiny hole in the lid of the coffee cup. “We got take-out and ate it on the beach.” 

“Sounds cold,” Gabe notes. 

“It was freezing.” 

“How romantic.” 

Pete shrugs. “It was fun.” 

“And?” 

“And what?” Pete stares at Gabe over the table with faux innocence and wraps his mouth around his straw. Gabe makes a face, raises both eyebrows, and leans across the table expectantly. Pete rolls his eyes, and when Gabe makes an encouraging hand gesture, Pete rolls the words around, chews them up, and spits them back out. “It’s good,” he says, and spins the coffee cup in his hands, “But it’s delicate. I’m trying not to fuck this up again.” 

Pete quickly returns to sipping at his straw, and Gabe leans back against his chair and drinks it all in. Gabe says, sounding confident, “You’re not going to fuck this up.” 

“How would you know?” 

“I just know you’re not going to fuck it up,” Gabe says, and Pete has difficulty finding a fair argument against this because Gabe is often right about situations of this nature and, as a bonus, is also half of the only couple Pete would ever appropriately deem perfect. He hosts an undercurrent of spite towards the rest of his friend’s girlfriends and significant others, grudges that might have started as jealousy and faded into distaste. “What, so your sister acted like she always does around people she likes and you puked in his bathroom? That’s not fucking it up,” Gabe continues, and delivers his final thought, “You puke all the time.” 

“I don’t puke _all the time,_ ” is Pete’s weak retort, and he briefly wonders where he can acquire better friends. “It’s just, like, what do you do for someone who moved halfway across the world for you? I mean, I get that it’s not literally for me, but—” Unable to verbalize what he really intends, Pete makes an unsure gesture in Gabe’s direction and hopes it communicates the desired message. “Feels a bit— inadequate.” 

“You lie awake at night and stress over this?” 

“Yes,” Pete emphasizes. 

Gabe stresses, “So what he moved halfway across the world for you? You wrote the guy a book. It seems pretty fair to me.” It really doesn’t compare, Pete thinks, especially considering that it seems to have done more to piss off Mikey than it ever did to impress Patrick, but arguing with Gabe is futile. He builds a fair case, that meeting each other’s questionable siblings, bickering about the ethics of a white lie, and vomiting up alcohol on New Year’s are all pages in the Ikea directions booklet on how to build a relationship. Also included, eating Thai food out of aluminum containers in below freezing temperatures and being okay with canceling dinner over a work responsibility. Gabe tells him once more, “You’re not fucking it up.”

_April, Year VII_

“She asked and I told her she could come.” 

“You asked Hayley to come with you.”

“She wanted to go.” 

“You wanted Hayley to come,” Pete says plainly, fondly bored of the argument already. He stabs the end of his fork in Patrick’s direction, a casual warning, and returns to examining his dinner. 

Patrick scoffs. He gives Pete a look of faux misery and concedes, because he’s getting better at honesty if even marginally, “I asked her and she wanted to go.” It’s a compromise; Pete grins, and Patrick fakes a bow over Pete’s kitchen island with a carefully timed eye roll and deadpans, “Thank you, really. You don’t have to clap.” 

Pete studies him for a brief moment. “You really think this will work out? What’s in it for her?” 

“Maybe.” Patrick shrugs. “She needs more flexible hours for school, and I desperately need someone to do all the shit I don’t have time for right now, so— maybe.” He takes a dramatic bite of his dinner and hopes the questions about logistics are over. 

Pete presses him anyway. “So the idea is to take her with you to New York and see what happens?” 

“She’s been talking to Victoria— I mean, not that talking to Victoria has ever helped anyone, but I’m sure she’s already scheming up some evil plan. Victoria, that is.” Patrick shrugs again, swallows, and goes back to his dinner. “Hayley doesn’t have the capacity for evil,” Patrick finishes. Pete looks as if he’s not so sure. 

“One time Hayley asked me if it was true that I had an oral fixation. Like, point-blank, she asked me that.” 

“And you told her—?” Patrick prompts easily. The quirked eyebrow is telling, as is the faint blush that comes over Pete’s face. Pete’s offended silence makes Patrick laugh, interrupted by the buzz of his phone at the end of the counter, and Patrick leans over the surface to peer at the incoming message. “Shit,” he says after glancing at the time. “I didn’t realize it was so late. I need to go figure out my packing situation.”

“Oh, wait,” Pete stumbles, as if he hasn’t been twitching with the effort of not mentioning it for most of the evening. He pushes his plate away from himself on the island and stands from the barstool. “I got something for you, before you go to New York. I should give it to you now in case I don’t see you until you get back.” 

Patrick feels his eyebrows fall at the same moment he lets his fork fall to the counter. He twists to watch Pete disappear down the hallway to his bedroom, and Patrick wipes his palms on the front of his jeans in anticipation. “You got me a gift?” Patrick calls into the kitchen, now alone. 

“I bought you a gift,” Pete tells him when he returns, hands held behind his back and wearing a crooked smile. He produces the small wrapped box and hands the box to Patrick over the counter. “Don’t get weird about it. Open it.” 

Patrick takes the package with exploratory fingers and after examining the corners, tears the paper with his thumbnail and rips open the box, because fuck the awkward, fumbling unwrapping method of peeling off each piece of tape individually. Pete sets his elbows on the edge of the counter and his face in his hands, pleased to watch Patrick’s moment of discovery. Patrick looks up from his gift and because  no words or tone of voice can explain the way his stomach drops and his heart flutters in his chest, says blankly, “You bought me a watch.” 

It’s a practical gift. It’s nothing Patrick would have bought for himself but rather admired while walking briskly past storefront windows on Newbury Street, and had he purchased it himself, he would have chosen something simpler, something sleek and understated. Instead, it sparkles and is obviously expensive, and knowing that it’s a piece Pete clearly would have chosen for himself makes it only more alluring. Patrick gropes at the box with shaking fingers, blinks back the tears threatening to bloom on his lower lashes, and tries not to think that it’s as much of an engagement gift as he’s ever wanted, as he’d ever hope to get, even though it’s much too soon. Pete watches him still, looking both unsure and pleased with himself, and Patrick takes a trembling breath and tells him, “Thank you.” 

Pete grins and leans over the counter for a kiss. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

“It should fit you. It fits me.” 

“Of course it does,” Patrick says, his hands on Pete’s face. “I love— I love it.” Pete stares at him up close, dark eyes drowning in fondness, and Patrick reveals, “I feel guilty.”

Pete laughs and sinks his fingers into the long hair swept off of Patrick’s forehead. “Why?”

“It’s so much money.”

“I bought it, didn’t I?”

“I don’t have anything for you. What am I going to get you that’s nicer— as nice as this?”

“I don’t want anything else,” Pete informs him quietly. Patrick looks between his hands and his eyes, and, “I have something else, too. Your new key to the apartment.” Pete produces a key on a purple lanyard from the pocket of his sweatpants.

 _Why don’t you just move?_ Patrick almost asks each time Pete mentions the latest dox on his privacy by disgruntled clients, to which Pete’s response has evolved into changing the locks once a month and hoping for the best. Patrick is avoiding asking because the natural succession of that conversation is an unromantic _move in with me_ and a weird discussion around Pete’s professional life putting Patrick’s personal life at risk, and the latter is the debate Patrick is hoping to circumvent, really. Patrick apologizes once more for having to leave early, and Pete assures him, “It’s fine. I have to be up early for a meeting with a crazy client anyway.” 

Patrick chooses not to mention it and asks instead, “Heir to the Saks throne or the PayPal prostitution saga?”

“I can’t say,” Pete tells him lightly, and then at Patrick’s pleading glance and singular exchanged kiss, caves. “It’s the PayPal prostitution thing.”

♥

Pete calls him the morning of his trip, while Patrick is pawing clothes out of the dryer in the shared foyer at the bottom of the stairwell to his house, desperately in search of the pants that perfectly match the shade of black of his sport coat. No others are acceptable. Patrick feverishly digs through the laundry hamper in front of him and pants into the phone, “Hello. Can I call you back?” He sweeps a pair of clean underwear off the floor and throws them on top of the pile of clothes in the hamper. 

“Hey,” Pete quips brightly on the other end of the line. “Do you have time to meet me for lunch before you go?” 

Patrick’s heart sinks. He vehemently wishes he had gotten up earlier. “I don’t think I have time, I’m sorry. I’m already late because—” Patrick blinks at the dryer and realizes he has no excuse for being late. He presses the phone to his shoulder and drags the hamper up the stairs. “Because of who I am on the inside or something. I can’t get my shit together.” 

“Did you eat anything today?” 

Patrick sighs and rolls his eyes. He says humorlessly, “I had a vodka cranberry, like, an hour ago.” 

Pete echoes, “You drank a vodka cranberry at ten in the morning.”

“It’s got juice in it,” Patrick explains, as if this makes it reasonable. “Fine, I got up at nine and I’m starting to freak out about my fucking meeting and I want a fucking cigarette. Does that help?” 

Pete withholds a laugh. “Yes, actually. Call me when you get there?” 

“Yeah.”

Pete considers the answer for a beat and knows that the chances that Patrick calls him prior to tomorrow’s meetings are slim, almost zero. Patrick sighs through the phone, and Pete grins to himself and asks, “Call me when you’re done with your thing tomorrow?” 

“Sure,” Patrick tells him, sounding less resigned. 

As expected, Patrick doesn’t call him until the next evening, too engrossed in his free weekend with Hayley and absorbed with his own anxiety about the upcoming meeting. He should text, to inform Pete that he’d gotten off the plane safely and had managed not to lose Hayley in the shuffle of JFK, but he doesn’t think of it with any real intention until Hayley mentions a guy she’d met at a show last weekend for the fifth time over dinner. She flips her phone over on the bar to stare at her phone screen longingly, and Patrick sneaks his own phone from his phone to belatedly announce that he hasn’t died yet. He tells Pete he’ll call tomorrow, and Pete is more proud of himself for predicting Patrick’s antisocial, increasingly anti-phone tendencies than disappointed. 

In the aftermath of the afternoon’s meetings,  (Patrick doesn’t want to talk about it; he is learning that there is no reason to cogitate on the facts of life that he can’t change. “It was good,” he supplies if pressed.), Patrick grabs a quick bite and calls it dinner with Hayley at the takeout locale across the street from the conference center and agrees to a celebratory drink tomorrow when he’s feeling less washed up. He trips through the hotel lobby and drags himself down the hallway to his room, soaking in the stereotypical terse silence of the stairwells and long halls of a hotel and how he dissipates it with the slide and click of his keycard in the door. The door glides open into a stuffy room, much warmer and much more stale than he’d left it that morning, and while popping the latch and pushing the window open over the street, Patrick’s phone buzzes (unsurprisingly) in the inside pocket of his sport coat. 

Patrick reaches for it with equal relief and annoyance. He swipes blindly at the screen and  stretches over the stark, almost sterile, white duvet of the hotel queen bed. Despite its unappealing appearance, he’s still desperate to climb inside and sleep away the nominal hours of the evening he has left. He should shower, the filth of the city sticks to the soles of his shoes, the cross-threads of his grey dress pants, and the thin hair between his knuckles and the cuffs of his sleeves. He touches the button for the speakers on his phone and drops the phone candidly to the bedspread to undo the buttons of his sleeves. 

“Pete,” Patrick says, in the same tone Hayley had taken with him earlier, herding him out of the massive glass doors of a conference center lobby. “It’s late.” 

“I know,” Pete mumbles. “I just wanted to see how it went— and say goodnight.” 

If Patrick thinks to be irritated a second time, it’s fleeting. “It was alright,” he says plainly.

Even through the phone, Patrick sounds tired. In his own bed, Pete stretches his arms over his head, having already completed his nightly routine of write and try not to think about Patrick, brush his teeth and think about Patrick, shower and definitely think about Patrick. “I’m sure it was great.” Patrick hums. Pete asks, “ Afterhours at Jaho next week? Please get wine drunk with me at a coffee shop at ten in the evening.” 

Patrick drops his forehead to the pressed bedspread and thinks, _God, yes, please_ , and grumbles instead, “Can I get back to you on that? I don’t even know what I’m doing tomorrow, I really want to just go to bed.” 

“Gorgeous, is it really so hard to believe that I don’t want to spend any more time than I already have missing you?” 

“Jealous that I’m spending the weekend with someone other than you?” Patrick stacks his chin on his fists and allows his eyes to fall closed for the first time all night. It’s dangerous; Patrick feels inches from sleep, suddenly thankful he’d left his uncomfortable dress shoes on to keep himself from drifting off. “I’m not making plans right now.” 

“Fuck,” Pete tells him, sounding defeated but amused. “I really thought that one would work.” 

Patrick rolls over on the bedspread and reaches for his belt, the buttons up the front of his shirt. “You’re not charming,” he tells Pete, sounding somewhat charmed. Patrick stifles a laugh, and abandoning the pursuit of the buttons on the lower end of his shirt tails, pulls his dress shirt over his head, balls it up in his hands, and throws it towards his suitcase. “It’s too late for this.”

“Too late to ask you what you’re wearing right now?” 

“Yes, oh my God.” Pete laughs over the phone, loud even though the tinny speakers, and Patrick tells him, “I have to get a shower.” Pete makes an interested noise. Patrick laughs.

"Send me a picture?"

“Yeah, fine. Fuck it.” Patrick says his hurried goodbyes, desperate to get off of the phone, and strips for the shower. He takes a picture over his shoulder and leaves his phone on the counter for the night, already anticipating the string of encouraging texts he will inevitably find in the morning. 

♥

Patrick and Hayley decide over a late morning coffee in the modest hotel café to waste the rest of the day between art museums and an early dinner before their flight. Patrick spends his early afternoon following Hayley like a phantom limb through the winding labyrinth of exhibits, escalators, long hallways, and adjacent doorways of the Museum of Modern Art. Hayley navigates the maze of rooms like she does the Boston subway system, but not knowing his ups from his downs, Patrick trails her closely. He tears himself away from the objects of his gaze as soon as he notices Hayley step towards any indiscriminate doorway and expends more mental energy keeping up with Hayley’s every move than he does internalizing any blunt moral reprimands presented in the mysteries of the MOMA. 

There’s an energy between the slats of hardwood floor and the particleboard ceilings that makes Patrick feel uneasy, genuinely concerned about losing Hayley and disappearing into the crevices of every expanding exhibit, having to ask any one of the mannequin-like security personnel to direct him to the nearest exhibit. The tangled walkways and intertwining rooms are a necessity to recreate a massive space on a tiny city block, but Patrick thinks while absorbed in Andrew Wyeth’s controversial classic _Christina’s World_ that he prefers the comfort of claustrophobia, a canteen-sized apartment and the soul-crushing squeeze of the Green line at rush hour, to the paralyzing availability of options. Patrick, in his pessimism, is of the opinion that the arrangement of the museum is distracting, mind-numbing even, and detracts from the artist’s intent like shitty pyrotechnics or poor audio balance. He feels he goes in circles, each piece feeling both brand new and capable of producing an overwhelming sense of nostalgia that smells of damp stairwells, new rolling papers, and cheap shampoo. Hayley informs him that this is what good art does. 

It could be that Patrick has never felt any particular fondness for visual art. Nothing seems to grab him short of some expected amazement with technical ability— not the relatability of Edward Ruscha’s _OOF,_ the chaos of a Jackson Pollock work (“It’s almost— sexual,” a viewer notes, and Patrick rolls his eyes and strides across the room to reattach himself to Hayley.) Patrick floats through the exhibits content to watch Hayley absorb art, that is, until Patrick looks up from the floor and meets familiar eyes. 

An inky bull, it stares at the viewer with a calming intensity, and Patrick finds himself drawn to it. The broad strokes of the brush loop over the animal’s back and draw his gaze to the animal’s eyes. The ink is thick and a deep purple, almost black. Patrick blinks at it and can’t decide if he should be panicking or if the painting makes him feel grounded. 

“I’ve seen this,” Patrick whispers to himself, and looks around wildly for Hayley. She’s nowhere to be seen, and neither is the room’s security guard, so Patrick slips his phone from his back pocket and double-checks that the flash is off before he quickly takes a picture. The bull stares back at him with equal intensity through the screen of the phone, and Patrick looks back at the painting and reads from the placard beside the frame, _Black Angus Meets Big Brahma. Betye Saar._

Hayley stands in one doorway to the exhibit surrounded by opposing symmetrical doors. “Patrick,” she calls, slightly louder than a whisper, and shoots a mirrored dirty look at the only other woman in the exhibit hall. Patrick glances between the doors before he finds Hayley. “Can we go? You’ve been looking at that for, like, ten minutes.” 

Patrick comes back to his current reality at an alarming speed, torn out of his thoughts so fast it makes him feel nauseous. “Yeah,” he breathes finally. “Yeah, let’s go. Dinner?” Hayley nods and beckons him towards the exit. 

Patrick and Hayley stay late at dinner. Two glasses of wine leave Patrick feeling warm and enthused about nothing at all, leaning over the table in laughter and zeroed in on Hayley’s nose wrinkled in mirrored hysterics. In the wake of a meeting well done and relieved to be out of the meandering puzzle of the Museum of Modern Art, Patrick drops the careful anxious persona for an hour of celebratory chaos with Hayley, like he only does with Hayley, with Pete. He knows he’ll crash later, as soon as his conscious is absent of the cackles of strangers and the sound of sirens on the street; he’ll be feeling fuzzy on the inside and dozing off as soon as the atmosphere is quiet and the pressure of the weekend catches up with him, but for the hour, Patrick watches Hayley spin her wine glass with her finger on the rim and laughs. 

Patrick and Hayley stay late enough at dinner that the journey from the bar to the hotel to collect their bags and meet the shuttle to the airport is a mad rush. Patrick tells Hayley to meet him in the lobby on the elevator ride up to his room and glances at his phone for the first time since he’d sat down for dinner to read Pete’s latest late-night musings.

Pete had said he would be out with Gabe, and from the fleeting coherency that radiates from the backlight of his phone screen, Patrick thinks he must have kept his promises. They make some sense to Patrick, bordering on tipsy himself. He’d blush even sober. 

> _Thinking and drinking it all tastes the same in the dark_
> 
> _Except you you taste especially sweet in the dark_
> 
> _Thinking and drinking about my tongue and your belly button_

Below these, the most recent text from William reads, 

> _Nate said you might have picked up an editor?? Congrats!!_

“What is it?” Hayley pushes when she meets him downstairs, curious of Patrick’s sideways smile and light flush. 

“Oh, it’s just— Pete, and a message from William. Nothing important.” Patrick glances at the time and motions to the shuttle parked at the curb outside before he slips the phone back into his pocket to ruminate on Pete’s mystifying confessions for the remainder of the night. They’re the only reason other than the offensive glow of the LEDs on the ceiling that he doesn’t fall asleep on the bus to the airport. The bright interior of the bus makes the streets appear darker than they are and the evening later than it is, but regardless of the time, Patrick is tired under his skin. It’s the tired desire to be home, in his own city in a familiar apartment, stretched out over the top of his duvet or better yet, with his face pressed to Pete’s bicep. Patrick lets his face fall against Hayley’s shoulder instead.

The shuttle from the hotel to the airport just outside the city is crowded, and though they’re the first to get on, Patrick and Hayley end up crushed together at the front of the bus by the time the bus leaves downtown. Patrick pulls his suitcase between his thighs to make room for the pedestrians still piling onto the bus, and Hayley presses her legs to Patrick’s, making herself as small as possible. They must look like a couple, a fact that Patrick is always acutely aware of and decides to lean into rather than make an effort of discontinuing. Hayley looks up from her phone to give him a sleepy sideways look. “Are you going home tonight?”

“Yeah, probably,” Patrick replies, noncommittal. He’s silent for a long moment, stifles a smile, and asks, “What’s it like not being in love?”

She wrinkles her nose and sighs. “Oh, it’s super boring. You wouldn’t like it all.” 

Patrick laughs softly. “What about that guy from the show last weekend?” 

“Yeah. He gave me his number. I really should call him.” Hayley chews on her cuticles and after a moment, asks, “You really think you love him?” 

Patrick’s face doesn’t change. “Yeah.” 

Hayley lets her head flop to the side to rest on Patrick’s. She nods, thinking, but doesn’t reply, and they’re silent for the rest of the ride from the hotel to the airport curbside. 

♥

When the plane lands at Logan just past midnight, Patrick leaves Hayley at the baggage claim with a weary hug and a promise to meet in the office tomorrow, calls for a car as he walks the rest of the way through the airport, and rejoices in the fact that it’s already arrived by the time he steps onto the tarmac outside the airport. It smells of the dampness that clings to the pavement after it rains and the stale smell of exhaust fumes, and Patrick hands his luggage to the driver with a mumbled thank you and the first address that comes to mind. He nearly falls asleep on the ride, with the rhythm of cars passing in the opposite direction and the muffled sound of talk radio from the front seat, and on Pete’s doorstep under the low light of a streetlight, Patrick vehemently curses Pete’s clients for leaving him with two keys for the same door but two different locks. 

His eyes blur as he fumbles with the keys in the apartment door. It’s not that late, people walk the street together behind him, but it feels later; Patrick is physically drained from lugging his suitcase over his shoulder for the better part of the evening and mentally drained from a couple of long days of work and an even longer couple of days of viscously missing Pete. A weekend should be nothing compared to the two years they’d spent distanced from each other, but Patrick aches with the need to make up for lost time, not here, exhausted on Pete’s doorstep, but over days and weeks. 

Patrick vigorously jiggles the key in the lock. The door finally gives, and Patrick breathes in the sleepy, silent, black-dark ambiance of Pete’s apartment and drops his bags on the couch before he stumbles to the bedroom. He strips and showers in record time, leaves his new watch on the nightstand, and clambers into bed. Patrick presses his face into the back of Pete’s neck, warm under sheets and skin, slides a hand over Pete’s ribcage, and sighs with his voice low from sleep, “Hey.” 

Pete makes a small noise in response and finds Patrick’s hand under the covers. “Go to sleep,” Pete whispers. “You’re tired, and I like you very much,” and Patrick only has time to think _home_ before he’s comatose. 

The morning finds them tangled together in a mess of limbs and sleep-strewn hair engulfed by Pete’s wool comforter. On the floor, still in the pocket of his discarded jeans, Patrick’s phone vibrates with an incoming call. The attempt at communication is thoroughly ignored as Patrick sleeps with the willpower of a rock, curled into himself and Pete’s bare chest while Pete takes up as much space as possible, one arm wrapped around the pillow, the other under Patrick’s neck.

Patrick stirs awake for a second time to a partial grasp on reality, exhausted to the bone from the night before but currently thoroughly satiated. He finds that Pete is surprisingly still asleep and drifts in and out of consciousness for what could be hours, body reveling in the healing warmth of Pete’s body heat and the sun slipping under the blinds. It  leaves a distorted pattern on the sheets at the end of the bed and under the covers, Patrick is warm and wonderfully naked. He extricates his arm from the duvet to gently push the strands of bedhead from Pete’s forehead and takes in Pete’s sleeping figure, mouth slack and eyelashes resting against his cheekbones. 

Pete’s apartment feels more like home than it ever has. Outside the room, the world ceases to exist. Patrick is invisible to everyone else, drenched in the smell of Pete’s shampoo on his pillow and Pete’s laundry detergent on the sheets, Pete’s shallow breaths on his collarbones and Pete’s hair between his fingers.Patrick drowns himself in the scene with a shuddering sigh and stills when Pete twitches beside him; Pete awakes to Patrick’s hands on his face and arms and morning breath hot on his hairline. Pete  grunts eloquently and refuses to open his eyes, even when Patrick’s hand slides to frame his hips. 

Patrick peels back the duvet and throws a leg across Pete’s thighs. He pulls himself to vertical and over Pete’s body in one smooth motion and sitting on his heels, Patrick crosses his arms over his chest and affixes Pete with a considering look. 

Pete wipes the sleep from his eyes with the heels of his hands and scrubs at his hairline. “You know this isn’t your house, right?” Pete asks, amused, instead of _good morning,_ or, _how was your trip?_ His hand still in Pete’s hair, Patrick’s expression shifts from considering to questioning. “Like,” Pete continues, “You got off your plane and decided to come here instead of going home and you still have to bring your stuff home later.” 

Patrick shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. I just gave the driver your address.” 

“It’s fine,” Pete says, and grins. “You can be here whenever you want.” 

Patrick presses the heels of his hands into the protrusions of Pete’s hipbones and pulls his lower lip into his mouth. Pete’s grin widens. Patrick rolls his eyes, and t he lurch in Pete’s chest can be attributed to nothing but the brush of Patrick’s fingers against his stomach and the look of fond judgment on the face of the man sitting across his hips. 

Pete lies across his white bedsheets, the hairy grey throw blanket, and the cream-colored duvet, and it is enough to make Patrick feel dizzy, hot with want, and blushing under the weight of implications and expectations. He takes a moment to take it all in with Pete’s hips under his hands and Pete’s thighs pressed to his, almost uncomfortably warm already, and Patrick’s heart jumps when Pete reaches for him. Pete asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Patrick replies, and, “Yes, I’m so good,” engrossed in the susurrations of Pete’s fingers on the front of his thighs, through the sparse hair on the lower half of his stomach, up the sides of his body. “Are you okay?”

Pete stretches his arms over his head and yawns with enough enthusiasm that his body trembles. He gives Patrick a long look and slouches against the headboard. “Yeah, I’m good. How was MOMA?” 

Patrick shifts against the bed to wrap his hand around the inside of Pete’s thigh and yawns himself; it’s contagious. “It was alright.” 

“See anything good?” 

“A few things were cool,” Patrick concedes. He doesn’t elaborate, having forgotten most pieces he’d seen in the shuffle of seeing even more art. He laughs softly and admits, “That place gives me the creeps. It’s so fucking— big.” 

Pete laughs at Patrick’s astute observation. “It’s a time-suck,” he agrees, and after a heavy pause in which Patrick watches him with a fond expression, confesses, “I missed you while you were gone. I still miss you. I’m fucking sick of missing you.” 

Patrick gives him a small smile. “Yeah. I already told Hayley this,” Patrick starts, because all of his emotional developments begin with Hayley, “But I’m still a little bit in love with you. I’m— I’m still in love with you. I’m so in love with you.”

Pete reaches for his face. He blinks and tucks a stray lock of hair behind Patrick’s ear, internalizing the divulgence. “Yeah?” 

“You’re supposed to say it back,” Patrick laughs, almost a whisper. His palms slide to Pete’s chest.

“Okay, fine— I love you.” 

“Yeah?” Patrick asks, almost mocking. He shoves at Pete’s chest playfully and grins. “Dick.” 

Pete grabs a handful of Patrick’s ass, slides his hands under Patrick’s thighs, and lifts, sending Patrick toppling backward into the mattress. Patrick pulls him down to the mattress beside him, laughing, and wraps his legs around Pete’s waist. 

Pete pushes him back, gently, before he grabs Patrick’s face in one hand and pulls Patrick by the shoulders to meet his body. Pete presses their mouths together softly. “I love you,” he whispers, and then, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” 

“Stay home with me,” Patrick mumbles into the small space, the warm air between them. He sinks his thumbs into the crevices of Pete’s folded hips. 

Pete bemoans, “I have to go to work. I feel kind of gross, though. Might be getting a cold.” 

“Do you?” Patrick raises one eyebrow and finishes, “Or would you just rather stay home?” He reaches across Pete’s chest and makes a grab for the phone on the side table, somewhat restrained by Pete’s hands preventing a stray elbow from colliding with his throat or diaphragm. He sits back against Pete’s pillows again, Pete’s hands folded in the crooks of his knee, and grins at Pete while he mimes speaking on the phone to someone important. All polite quips and vague answers, he holds the phone pressed to one ear and his hand to the other and nods. “Yeah, he can’t come into work today.” A brief pause. “Yeah, he’s just not feeling well.” Patrick throws a wink in Pete’s direction. 

Pete grins proudly and  thinks he’s going to write another book of all the seemingly meaningless things Patrick tells him in bed, hazy from sex or from weed, and it won’t be for sale, because it’s going to be priceless. “Horrible,” he informs Patrick when he’s hung up on Pete’s fake secretary. “That was horrible.”

Patrick returns the phone. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Now call them for real.” 

The admiring look Patrick gives him is irresistible; Patrick shoves at his thighs until Pete crawls off his lap, having enough sense not to call his secretary with Patrick’s naked body plastered to his under bedsheets, and pulls on the sweatpants and hoodie he’d deposited on his bedroom floor before bed the previous night, unaware that Patrick would be accompanying him before the morning hours. He takes his phone with him, padding across the hardwood floors to his bathroom, and as the bathroom door closes with a click, Pete hears Patrick say into his own phone, for real, on the other side of the door, “Hey, can we talk later in the week? I’m not coming into the office today.”

_June, Year VII_

They spend nearly every weekend of a long (but still too short), hot summer at Gabe’s house in Newport, as much a part of Gabe’s family as anyone related to him, occasionally accompanied by Gabe or Erin or Hayley and her new boyfriend— one that Patrick hopes will stick around for a while. Patrick drives his own car, a small and efficient sedan that he’d purchased himself, thank you, to the beach Friday afternoons. Already at the house and having left a number of necessities at home, Pete leans against the railing of the deck behind the house, overlooking their strip of beach, and asks Patrick to pick up his forgotten belongings on the drive down. The reply comes almost instantly. 

_Sure. Love you_

Pete stares at the message for minutes, feeling antsy, and finally sends back, _How come you never put the I in I love you?_

_I love you,_ Patrick replies, and Pete is happy.

They spend the dog days of summer expecting nothing and taking everything, tangled up in each other and Pete’s exorbitantly expensive bedsheets. Patrick parks his car in the short gravel driveway beside the house and stares at himself in the plastic mirror on the sun visor, fixes his already sweaty hair, and anticipates the inevitable— yanking off his t-shirt and making quick work of the button and the fly of his jeans, wriggling out of his shorts, and making no attempt to look any less desperate than he is as he throws himself on top of Pete. 

_Does it ever go away?_ Patrick thinks, the sexual bliss of undressing in front of a man you actually like, that you might love, and he might love you in return? Love you enough to buy you something expensive at least, as much as an engagement ring and much more visible than one would be, and Patrick would be lying to say that the money spent doesn’t mean anything.

It didn’t last forever for his parents, or many of his friends’ parents, and it was never quite the same with William— fun and satisfying, but not like this, strangely less satisfying because it’s never enough. Patrick itches for Pete’s hands on his body and the carefully placed marks Pete’s mouth has left on his skin as to be easily concealed by a shirt collar or on his waistline. Tomorrow, Patrick will press his thumbs into them, a daily pre-shower ritual, and remember that he can have whatever he wants if he puts the work into it. They fade in time for Patrick to sink his hands into Pete’s hair the next time he sees him and breathe, “Give me another one.”

And tomorrow, when he thinks he’s being sneaky and Pete is preoccupied with a shower before a dinner out, Patrick will take the hidden pack of Marlboros and the silver Zippo from the bottom of his bag and step out onto the deck, slide the glass door quietly back into place. Patrick lets his eyes flicker to the bathroom window before he leans over the railing of the deck and lights the cigarette already in his mouth.

Cigarettes are such; there are some habits you just can’t quit— habits that will pull you back in and drown you after you’ve sworn them off for the infinith time in a week, habits you see a professional to kick and it’s still the most monumental hurdle you’ve ever had to climb, and habits that mean absolutely nothing, free to exist forever and ever until one day they simply don’t. It is said that it takes seven days to pick up a bad habit and twenty-one to start a good habit. Breaking them is subject to less rules, seemingly dependent on the substance, one’s determination to quit, and time itself, the position of the stars, the seasons.

Some habits, even bad habits, are not worth quitting— when the punishment is worse than the crime or nobody gets hurt. Some habits are not worth quitting because when they’re great enough, they’re passion, and when passion intensifies itself enough, it’s love, and really, who is to deny themselves something to love and be loved by? 

Old habits die hard, and all Patrick knows is that his cigarette tastes like Heaven and feels like Heaven between his fingers, and the first sip of wine over dinner will be Heaven, and later, when Pete slides his thumbs under the elastic waistband of Patrick’s boxers, that will also be Heaven, and so will Heaven exist in the limited time between when he begins to drift into sleep and when sleep consumes him. 

Heaven lies in the expanse of time in which Patrick spends terrorizing a crowd with his abhorrent dancing accompanied by Pete’s equally atrocious karaoke at Hayley’s second graduation party years later, friends’ weddings (never his own, they’ve agreed, as least for the foreseeable future and farther), and birthday celebrations. It is the time spent in friends’ apartments and absolutely trashed on craft beer and weed, and he is both ferociously, romantically nihilistic and obnoxiously, dreadfully, hopeful about the future. 

Patrick finishes his cigarette and drops it into the outside garbage bin, pockets the silver lighter, and goes inside and upstairs to the bathroom to brush his teeth. 

Pete steps out of the shower with his towel around his waist. Patricks stares at his own reflection in the mirror, unblinking with his toothbrush in his mouth, and Pete asks the leading question, “Brushing your teeth at four-thirty in the afternoon?” 

“Mhmm,” Patrick says around his toothbrush. Pete stares at him hard through the mirror. Patrick accidentally blinks. 

Pete presses his nose to the soft skin below Patrick’s ear and inhales the smell of safety and confidence and shared masculinity into the tips of his fingers and toes. He leaves a kiss below Patrick’s ear before he leaves the humid bathroom and informs Patrick in a murmur, his face pressed to Patrick’s neck, “Your hair smells like cigarettes. Not as sneaky as you think you are.” 

“Mhmm,” Patrick says again, and rolls his eyes. He washes his mouth out in the sink and calls down the hallway, “Should I shower? Wait for me?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Pete replies, “As long as it takes.”

_August, Year VII_

By the end of the summer, Pete’s belongings spill into Patrick’s house like Patrick’s into Pete’s, and included in this is a fresh copy of Pete’s book, though this had been intentional. Pete gifts it to Patrick over breakfast at Café Luna on a Sunday morning before the day gets hot, too excited to wait until they get home— home being Patrick’s house in Chelsea where they spend the rest of the afternoon. 

Teasing, Patrick asks him, “But I have the original copy. Why do I need a new one?” The look Pete gives him over his coffee makes Patrick rethink the comment, and Patrick holds the book to his chest and leaves it on the table for the remainder of breakfast. 

“Whole Foods after breakfast and then your place, right?” Pete suggests.

“If you want.” 

Pete takes a sip from his iced coffee and says with the straw still in his mouth, “I love your house.”

“You don’t think it’s too far from the city?”

Pete shrugs. “Not really.” 

Patrick hums in reply and takes a pointed sip of his own coffee. He throws a glance at Pete, now engrossed in a dog crossing the street, and thinks that only Pete could invite himself to move into Patrick’s house in ten words or less. 

♥

Patrick waits until Pete leaves for the night to open it. He sits beneath the big window in his living room. balances a cup of decaf coffee topped with whipped cream on his thigh, and turns the book over in his hands. It’s heavy, the printed dust jacket slick in his hands, and Patrick opens the cover with his heart in his throat. The spine gives with an audible crack, and Patrick flips the flyleaf and the title page to read, _To Gorgeous. I don’t think God plays dice._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to try to write some mooshie thing for the end of this but I honestly can't be bothered to wax poetic, so with that said:  
> 1\. [THIS](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2KhEvhXJOG0LPWXFaej4PQ?si=qg5760QFSNGq8bP2hwC-og) is a playlist. There's a song for each chapter. I recommend listening in order.  
> 2\. If you read this/interacted with this/played the cheerleader role/etc., THANK YOU!!!  
> 3\. If you enjoyed reading this even 1/100th as much as I enjoyed writing it, then it was worth it, and I really think I can say that writing this kept me from going off the deep end completely this year. 
> 
> Thank you again and happy winter solstice holidays and I will definitely have more stuff in the future!! :))

**Author's Note:**

> @battylite on Tumblr.


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